As a project nears its delivery deadline and the software is not ready, desperation often takes over. Suppose the schedule called for two months of unit testing, two months of integration testing, and two months of software system testing. It is now one month from the scheduled delivery. Suppose 50% of the components have been unit tested. A back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates that you are five months behind schedule. You have two choices:
- Admit the five-month delay to your customer: Ask for a postponement.
- Put all the components together (including the 50% not yet unit tested) and hope for the best.
In the first case, you are admitting defeat, perhaps prematurely. In the eyes of your managers, you might be giving up before you've done everything in your power to overcome the problem. In the second case, there might be a chance that, when you put it all together, it will work and you'll be back on schedule. Project managers often succumb to the latter because it looks like they are trying everything before admitting defeat. Unfortunately, this will probably add six more months to your schedule since you'll be trying to retrofit quality. You cannot save time by omitting unit and integration testing.
Reference:
Weinberg, G., Quality Software Management, Volume 1: Systems Thinking, New York: Dorset House, 1992.
