No one would deliberately drive at night with their headlights off. It’s obvious why, we might make it to our destination but we’ll have run down a few pedestrians, bounced off some curbs, hit a lamp-post or two and slid into a few ditches. Were we to continue this way, our car would quickly turn into a useless wreck.

Driving with the headlights on allows us to see ahead, plan and anticipate a little, to think. In turn, our journey is more pleasant, the car lasts a lot longer and there’s much less risk of a fiery end.

Yet many companies drive with their headlights off when developing software. Silly deadlines with a non-negotiable set of features, fixed resource and no time to think. The result? A tangled mess of systems with zero-architecture, huge legacy, horrible brittleness and poor availability. And that most desired property of quick delivery is lost as it takes longer and longer to do even the most simple things.

There’s no substitution for prior thought and realistic planning. Yet so many eschew it whilst complaining about the results.

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