The Cost of Rework Avoidance Theory | #89

PawCast with GeePaw Hill

To make the case for Change Harvesting as an approach, it's important to understand that the cost of Rework Avoidance Theory isn't imaginary or subtle, but both concrete & quite high. The most essential aspect of the RAT (Rework Avoidance Theory) is its emphasis on the endpoint: the City On The Hill we call it. The central concept: define the City rigorously, optimize building it off-line, move in to it only when it's done, and never change it again. In the RAT's idea of efficiency, changing a thing is waste. After all, why did we build it all if we're just going to turn around and change it to get to the City on the Hill? Why not just build it that way to begin with? This idea, that change is bad, that we should avoid having to change our systems, absolutely permeates the culture of software development, to the point where it is less an intellectual construct and more of a gut-level instinct. The RAT seems to actually *fear* change.

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