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ReverseSoftwareLifecycle

Stage 1 - Requirements Elicitation

Find out an application doesn't meet a requirement (usually a NonFunctionalRequirement) usually by deploying it in production.

You have now elicited the requirement (or at least elicited what the requirement wasn't).

Stage 2 - Blamestorming

Blame everyone within a 5 mile radius, apart from yourself, of course.

Stage 3 - Defect Removal

Remove the defect, whatever his name is.

Stage 4 - Rapid Development

Try to make some quick changes to the application, or more usually throw more and more hardware at it until it appears to work (sort of).

Stage 5 - Deployment

Chuck it into production, complete with an army of people to nurse it along for ever more.

Stage 6 - Iterative Development

Complete stages 1 to 5 for ever. Never learn anything.

PhilStubbington 2004.03.07

The above is the software-specific version of the more general "universal project life-cycle" which has 6 phases:

• Enthusiasm
• Disillusionment
• Panic
• The search for the guilty
• The punishment of the innocent
• Praise and honors for the non-participants.

I have never seen this life-cycle with an attribution. If anyone knows the origin, I'd be glad to hear that. Blame - er credit where credit is due.

-- JimBullock, 2004.03.08 (Pursuing successful non-participation for fun and profit.)