TDD We got no time for that.

I have been on two projects where the Developers were instructed not to use TDD, because, “We don’t have time for that.”

In my head I am saying to that person, “What! You don’t have time to let me design the software that you so urgently need?”

I am not sure why corporate companies get into this state. Perhaps a few executives pick a random budget, say £2,000,000.

The processes in the corporate environment then burn up a lot of that budget. Constant meetings, planning, prioritisation, risk management, highly detailed design documents etc.

When it gets down to doing the actual coding, there is only 5% £100,000 of the budget remaining.

Of course there will then be panic. Of course a Project Manager is not going to be impressed when you say you want to increase the code production time by using TDD.

It’s kind of ironic, that the rushed coding, hacking, panic, misunderstandings lead to more bugs which would have been detected with TDD.

It really is sad when a project finds itself I this state.

Yes, at the Development stage TDD obviously takes longer.

But you’ve got to look at the bigger picture.

• Better quality code delivered.
• Code that is more stable.
• Code that is far more easy to maintain.
• Code that can easily be enhanced with new features.
• Far lest bug bounce between Customers, Testers and Developers.
• Oh and a far calmer, professional working environment.