Be Prepared for the Thorns

Is it okay to tell little lies and small promises?

No, they are habit forming. Quality software (or 6-pack abs) requires not fooling oneself, and meeting commitments, no matter how small.. As Seth points out, the worst lies are those that one tells oneself. It is true for organizations, as much as it is for individuals.

The customer wants 60 defects fixed in 6 months. Our documented record of the past shows we can expect to fix ~25 defects. That is what we commit to. The customer threatens that he will take his business elsewhere. Should we make a commitment and tell a lie? We did not. We met our commitment. The customer stayed with us.

We were to do a port of the GCC to a VLIW DSP. We committed to do a prototype port in five months. The customer wanted two months. We did not agree. We also said we would not give an estimate for the total port till we had done the prototype. Till that was done, we would also not take any money from them. After three months it appeared that we could not meet the five month target. We informed the customer that it would take us another three months. The customer was not willing to wait.

That is what not telling lies and false promises is about. It is tough. As an old song says, " ... You do not find roses grow on tops of clover". So if you want to commit to quality, be prepared for the thorns.

P.S. We continued with the GCC port. Unfortunately after a couple of months, owing to management problems in the company, we had to let go of our people. At the time the porting work was stopped, it appeared that we would have completed a successful port within the extended period of three months.