In his excellent book, Customer Centered Selling, Robert Jolles relays a poem about consequences:

FOR WANT OF A NAIL

For want of a nail, a shoe was lost
For want of a shoe, a horse was lost
For want of a horse, a rider was lost
For want of a rider, a message was lost
For want of a message, a battle was lost
For want of a battle, a war was lost
And all for the want of a nail…

Ben Franklin

A recent client lacked concern about building software regularly and successfully. In his mind, build failures were equal to the annoyance of a hobbled horse: something resolved easily when a release date approached.Ben Franklin

But this same chain of events could be applied to the software business. My crude version of the poem – adopted for software development – lacks the poetic prowess of Mr. Franklin. Hopefully, though, it illustrates a point.

FOR WANT OF A BUILD

For want of a build, a test case was not executed
For want of test case, a defect was not detected
For want of a defect report, a bad release was promoted
For want of a good release, a strategic customer was lost
For want of a customer, a development team was reduced
For want of developers, a product stagnated
For want of a product, a company was lost
And all for the want of a build…

We would all be well served to remember the potential impact of small problems as we consider where to spend our resources. Little annoyances like failed builds or test cases can be very early indicators that you are “losing the war” in your development efforts.

How important are the little annoyances in your software organization? Do you get concerned if a particular build effort fails? Do you have developer test cases? Are they executed regularly? Who gets heartburn if they fail?