Follow The Lemmings With Care

"If 50 million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
-- Anatole France

Just because many (perhaps even, most) people are doing something does not make it right for you. It may be right, but you need to carefully assess its applicability to your environment. Some examples are:

• object-orientation, software measurement
• You Can Optimize Whatever You Want*
• Collect Data Unobtrusively*
• Know Before You Count*
• Collect Productivity Data*
• Don't Forget Team Productivity*
• software reuse
• You Can Reuse Without a Big Investment
• process maturity
• Use an Appropriate Process Model
• computer-aided software engineering (CASE)
• Technique Before Tools
• Use Tools, but Be Realistic
• Give Software Tools to Good Engineers
• Tools Are Expensive
• prototyping
• Build the Right Kind of Prototype
• Build the Right Features into a Prototype
• Build Throwaway Prototypes Quickly
• Prototypes Reduce Risk in Selecting User Interfaces

In all cases, these offer very positive opportunities for increased quality, decreased cost, or increased user satisfaction. However, the advantages are available only to those organizations in which it makes sense. Although the rewards are significant, their potentials are often oversold and are by no means guaranteed or universal.

When you learn about a "new" technology, don't readily accept the inevitable hype* associated with it. Read carefully. Be realistic with respect to payoffs and risks. Run experiments before making major commitments. But by no means can you afford to ignore "new" technologies (Don't Ignore Technology).

Reference:
Davis, A., "Software Lemmingineering," IEEE Software, September 1993.