Software Development Hype Cycle

I recently tweeted a banal thought (as most are) that the hype cycle could probably be applied to software development (and probably any project) as well as a technology or product.

So I decided to jot down some thoughts about how a new project could follow that cycle.

Gartner’s Hype Cycle is well known and probably overused, but if you are not familiar with it then wikipedia has it well summarised.

And the chart is shown below…

Technology Trigger

You or your boss or marketing or whoever has a cool new idea, you are convinced it will change peoples lives for the better and make you rich at the same time, and most folk agree. (In a big company this is probably the hardest bit – committed project sponsors – in a startup this is the easiest bit!)

Peak of Inflated Expectations

You fill whiteboards and are excited about all the problems you have identified.
The risks appear to be small enough to deal with. You spike stuff, you’re throwing out tons of cool investigatory code.
Playing with new frameworks and gadgets.
Tin is being bought, the team is solving problems, everyone is chatty in the scrums, the repo is tidy, tests are passing, refactoring is quick and clean.
You’ve released some stuff that folk can use.
Everyone loves you.

Trough of disillusionment

The project grows, so does the code base, and branches, the exploratory code has long ago been production-ised, you are wading through a morass of story cards, more keep appearing, and no-one knows what ‘finished’ is.
Deployments keep catching you out.
One half of each pair is hanging out in the kitchen more than usual, you spend more time bringing the new guy up to speed (since a coupla guys left) checkins need careful coordination, 10% of your time is spent fixing conflicts.
The beta code is being hit by a few folk internally – mainly to complain, the business wonders why things are going so slowly.
‘Da Management’ starts to distance itself.

Slope of Enlightenment

The build environment is stable, coverage is good, sprints are hitting a rhythm, the team has gelled, refactoring is quick and easy, discipline is good, daily checkins are working fine, conflicts are minimal, stand ups are positive and productive.
You’ve got some stable features out, feedback is constructive, there’s talk of release dates.
Marketing start to care again.

Plateau of Productivity

Things are rolling, customers are using your code, the releases are cruising, development is 10% of the energy, its mainly sales support and maintenance, you are working in new features and fixes easily, sales are strong, the project is paying its way.

Everyone is happy, except you…..you want a new project to work on!