Structured life-cycle assumptions

New programmers, some managers, and lots of users don't understand the advantages of a structured software life-cycle. However, only a single experience with coding while designing will convince any incipient software engineer that a controlled process is needed from the time of system concept though the last maintenance phase. Software Configuration Management has become almost a religion, and EDP auditors have even encountered a few systems that appear to have been specified, then designed, then implemented, then tested, and finally installed—all before maintenance and redefinition occurred. Perhaps the millennium has finally arrived, and software people will soon live in a controlled world with rational practices.

If you are tempted to believe the foregoing prediction, read the latest issue of FORTUNE, the WALL STREET JOURNAL, or COMMERCE BUSINESS DAILY and note a few problems that may divert us from the path to Nirvana. Data Processing supports commercial, educational, industrial, and governmental activities that are frequently (and repeatedly) redirected. Under circumstances of a largely random environment with thorough business planning a rarity, a critical support activity can expect to be redirected frequently. New ideas will be sliced into partly-completely DP projects, and users “analytical analyses” will become DP systems as if by magic.