Feigning in S/W Industry

this is kinda in continuation with my ramblings bout the indian s/w industry experience ... not that any industry is perfect ... nevertheless some more stuff that I witnesses this week ...

it was time so this so called AS9100 standard for the aerospace industry ... now ... our current project is a good piece of work ... in fact the design had some amazing stuff ... during our initial architecture discussions ... on a casual note with Rob n Al we realized that the time provided was quite impractical n their simulation on various models said the same ... doubling the work force does not double the output ... yet it was to be ...

project went on fine n ez ... I shud say that artifacts that I produced were some of the best ... other hav got into trouble coz of me :D ... all until the dev phase ... when we realized that we did not have the technical knowledge ... in 5 days I had to learn the new technology + get the feature rolling ... it happened ...

as the schedule always remained an impasse ... all our process adherence dwindled ... no peer-review (not even had time for self reviews) ... not enough documentations over changes in design ... no adherence to coding standards ... inadequate testing and sanity checking down here ... a CMM 5 company not even keeping up with these ... now what do I call that ...

reason ... lack of time n schedule ... the schedule did not provide engineers with time over fixing bugs ... they have to get the nxt thing rolling on time + get the old stuff fixed ... nice to imagine ... interesting the 1st few days ... practical?? NO ... it just wudn't happen ... so many times I tell my seniors ... its a nice plan but it wudn't happen ... time n again it doesn't ... yet they remain persistent ... why??

if we tell our managers something is not possible within the stipulated time ... then the immediate response is "maybe we can work in shift ... put in more resource" ... anything that would put a persons lifestyle in jeopardy ... if this were a more mature company the 1st question is ... y is there such an over shoot ... this means out estimation are inaccurate ... that where the problem is ...

to quote an e.g. philips bangalore ... ppl are not to stay @ office more than 7 ... the access is restricted n the security has to escort @ such times ... more that a week an emp works such ... his manager is called in by the top most guy and questioned ... I wud mind stretching myself for such companies coz they care ...

unfortunately most indian companies this is not the case ... the managers r responsible for the account making money ... so that works out from getting the contract to billing the employees for their work ... their quote (timeline) just never seem to work well ... n the scapegoats ... the engineers ... invariably always having to cushion this ...

now from the customer perspective ... most of his deliveries are delayed ... the products quality is poor ... so he invariably lands up taking another contract to get the bugs fixed ... not that they are perfect ... I'v known them to be the reason for so many of the above ...

now lets go full circle ... in a race to satisfy the customer, the company shed all its convictions (processes) just to stay in business ... n yet they wud still preach n bluster over having got certified ...

our project never has such thing as peer review for the production code ... n yet the auditors get review records for all of em ... all fabricated over the two days before the audit ... as for metrics ... it was all made up ... y ... coz they were never emphasized (in fact I never knew) ... n secondly the infrastructure was not there ... which is mandated by the process ... to be able to backdate the project n get pertinent information ...

I'n knows that Game Development in most places suffer the same fate ... but fortunately they do no aim to or brag bout such ... their goal is their final product n their only penchant toward such is to improve their means of work and the engineers personal life ... which untimately ensures quality of the work product ...

what have I done about it ... evey time I initiate something it gets overruled of I am responsible for all the effort ... n mind em they r extract effort never accounted for ... yet these would be forgotted in no more than 3-6 months ... back to square one ...

my principle in life n work is simple ... practice what you preach ... the retort I get when I advertise this ... "thats not how it works in business" ... I do agree with that ... this aint a perfect world ... "God achieves perfection ... man achieves excellence" ... it the attitude of rationalizing it that upsets me the most ...

my manager empathizes with these very thoughts ... n his comments as a private note to me ... I have projected these to the management n all u get is a mockery or disregard at the meetings ... all they ultimately care bout is how much the company makes ...

the companies stand ... if u can make any improvements upon this ... thats left to you ... no extra time ... n the employees stand ... this is all you get in the time u'v given me ... a catch 22 situation ... nah ... one problem that I see is that ... Indian companies rarely give an estimate for any outsourced work ... rather they plan ... which does explain a quite lot ... or is ther yet another explanation ...