The Truth of Software Engineering

Posted by leepeng on August 25, 2010

Received this picture couple of months ago. Suppose to be something for us to feel funny and laugh at.

However, the similar picture was actually printed on my university software engineering text book.

It makes me ponder on communications.

A solution can only considered good if it meet client’s objective and solve their problem. In order to do this, understanding and passing of correct information is very important.

In industry practice, we have tools like functional specs, flow charts, screen prototypes and different kind of diagrams.
So do we come out with these documents just to fulfill the software engineering lifecycle or because we quoted documentation or just for the sake of coming out some documents so that both client and us feels good?

I felt documents is useless if it is not a tool for communication. When we draft a functional specs, we have to think in clients’ perspective to come out with something that they can understand so that we can discuss and confirm various business concepts and requirements using the document. At the same time, if we need client to visualise, we have to come out with screens so that we can discuss further or to trigger more views from them so we can have deeper understanding of their needs.

We are learning and doing our best to improve our communications so that we can have more happy customers.