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“Developers need to realize that [ADP] benefits them. But they won’t start recognizing this until they see that they have less work.”

-- Dr Adam Kolawa, Co-Founder & CEO of Parasoft

Dr Adam Kolawa is the coauthor of the recently published Automated Defect Prevention: Best Practices in Software Management (Wiley & Sons, 2007). He is the co-founder & CEO of Parasoft, a leading provider of Automated Error Prevention software solutions. Aside from additionally co-authoring Bulletproofing Web Applications, Dr Kolawa has contributed to or written more than 100 commentary pieces and technical papers, and has coauthored numerous scientific papers.

Java Developer’s Journal: How realistic is it to seek to modify the development process in the entire software life cycle to reduce opportunities for mistakes? Is Automated Defect Prevention simply too much for IT organizations to take on board?

Dr Adam Kolawa: It’s not very realistic. That’s why we’re not trying to modify the development process. Rather, we’re trying to improve it.  There’s a big difference. We learned that it’s critical to take it slow. In the book, we discuss this under ADP Principle 6: Incremental Implementation of ADP’s Practices and Policies. In a nutshell, you never want to attack the process as a whole. Instead, start by going after a few “low-hanging fruits”— relatively simple changes that will yield significant gains. Then, keep moving forward.

It is too much to expect that you can get the entire organization on board at once. That’s why you need you introduce it incrementally, winning over one group at a time. It typically takes years to extend it across the entire organization.

AK: I really think that this is all a human and change management challenge. Developers need to realize that this benefits them. But they won’t start recognizing this until they see that they have less work. The key to success here to have an infrastructure handle as much work as possible. This way, developers have time to focus on the creative tasks they enjoy most… the ones that truly require human intelligence.


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