Foundation Stone #11 - Know “why” for a better “what to do”
I am a big fan of Martin Fowler and have tried to follow his preachings as much as I can. I like his articles very much as it has clear explanations of concepts with advantages and disadvantages. His recent article on his site “Using an Agile Software Process with Offshore Development” explains how agile principles can be applied in an onsite-offshore development model. This foundation stone comes when I read through one of the statements where he talks about how important understanding the business behind the requirements. Here is the exerpt.
“Building software off just a list of requirements misses out a lot business context - developers are told what to do without being told why it’s important. The why often makes a big difference in doing the what properly.“
So true that knowing “why” is a very important information for every programmer to be effective. Understanding why the requirement is needed from the business perspective makes it easy to decide what to do to meet that requirement. In effect there is a great chance that what is done is effective.
