The myth of developer independent systems

Today a colleague of mine was asserting that the core reason of sloppy development is not having detailed quality procedures, i.e. bureaucratic systems independent of who is following them. I told him that we have more than enough development procedures, that any complex system is always dependent on the quality of people who implement them. If a project is sufficiently complicated and there is time pressure and market competition, you need high quality people who can evaluate risks realistically, tailor standards and cut corners to save time and effort. But they are also acutely aware of technical debt and clean up the quick and dirty solutions when time permits it.

You never have enough resources to develop your ideal system and always have to settle on a viable product. If your chief engineers are not wise enough, they will underestimate complexity, confuse priorities and take unreasonable risks. The problem is that they won't know that those risks are high. For them it will look like a brilliant course of action, until disaster strikes. If they are bad enough, they won't even be able to learn the correct lessons from failure.

Bad products are not the result of bad procedures but bad engineers and managers. The shortest path to success is to find and nurture good people who can develop quality products, write realistic procedures and make the team better.