Code is Design

Your software project is late. It has cost twice what was budgeted. The features that were supposed to be ready six months ago still aren't working. And nobody - not the developers, not the consultants, not the project manager - can give you a straight answer about why.

The problem isn't incompetent developers or unreasonable clients. It isn't the wrong methodology, or insufficient process, or inadequate tools. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what software development actually is - one that has persisted for fifty years, infected the way projects are planned and contracted, and cost organisations around the world billions in wasted effort and broken trust.

Drawing on over four decades of commercial development experience across industries and continents, Code Is Design exposes the construction myth at the heart of almost every failed software project: the belief that writing code is like building a bridge - that a system can be fully designed upfront, estimated with precision, and handed to a team of developers to simply "build." It cannot. And understanding why changes everything about how software projects should be run.

Whether you are a developer who has lost count of the times you have been asked for an impossible estimate, or a manager who cannot understand why your technology investments keep going sideways - this book was written for both of you.