Uncle Bob Says : Stakeholders

Scope vs Shape

Stakeholders in software system believe that requirements and changes are complicated only by scope. Stakeholders can understand that the certain changes are big and the other changes are small. They believe that the cost of changes will be proportional to that scope. Big changes cost a lost, little changes cost a little. but programmers don’t see at that way.

Programmers see each new requirements as a puzzle piece that must be fit into an every more complex puzzle. What a stakeholder believes to be a small change will cause massive repercussions to the structure of the software, so the developer looks that as a big change. This is the faulty architecture, is architecture that lies to the stakeholders by making small changes expensive and big changes cheap. The solution of this is to keep that puzzle as simple as you can.

Stakeholders want changes

The stakeholders do not have ability to prioritize architecture. The stakeholders of the system has no right to tell me what the architecture ought to be.

Fight for the architecture

It is always a struggle, YOU are a stakeholder too! Argue as equals, If architecture comes last, costs will grow. “Behind the Power Curve”.