| Businesses* don't care about quality until it's too late. They pay lip service to it, sure, but when it comes down to it most don't care enough until it actually starts to affect the bottom line. And longer, more expensive development processes are already affecting the bottom line, so come on, get it out the door! Plus a lot of engineers see quality considerations as a drag. If they can find a home in a company that doesn't want all this "extra" stuff done then, well, this is what you get. There are notable counter-examples in companies - Big Blue has a huge focus on quality, and their teams put a lot of effort into it (note I am saying nothing about usability here...) which is possible because a lot of stuff there moves slowly anyway. It's also because IBM are very, very good at measuring their cashflows and costs and have figured out just how much lack of quality can impact their bottom line. There are also many individual engineers in smaller companies who put quality up front, and try their damnedest to push it through even where the business may not really care. ( * mostly SMEs are terrible for this, IMHO, though one or two large corporates I've worked with haven't been that great either) |