Why does an intact requirement important?
I've been in the software agency industry for almost 8 years. It's been tough years. I've learned a lot and burned out several times. Most of the time I worked as a lead developer (that still codes) and sometimes, I moved up to become a Project Manager.
The team will burn out really fast
Based on my experience, my team and I got burned out really fast if there were a lot of requirement changes. Sometimes, my teammates would not reply or even pick up my calls when I needed them. The feeling is something like when you reach the top of the mountain (you finished your task and to celebrate) then suddenly you fall off to the bottom. It's also harmful to the person's body in the long run.
The project will take longer to finish
If there are a lot of changes occur during the development, the tendency to slip off the project timeline is really high. As an agency, we're giving our best to consult and share the technical solution. But however, there're requirements related to the user's policy such as what language to use, what should we choose for background color, and where they want to align their logo. I know that there's good practice in terms of UI and UX but somehow, the policy restricted that.
To decide on these simple requirements would take months and really, it doesn't make any sense to us. Sometimes, the language requirement would change something like Malay -> English -> back to Malay just because of the change in the user's director. Mind blown.
Reduction in code quality
When there's a requirement change but the timeline is still the same (which is pretty normal), we start to rush to finish our task. This is when you are not thinking about Clean Code by Uncle Bob anymore. Pssst, it is a nice book anyway! You will do whatever it takes just to finish the code really quickly. Ending up, I don't need to tell you actually but yeah, it's disastrous. Bugs will arise and they will become unstoppable.
Start a discussion
This is my first time writing. It's not that good but it will be better.
Do you guys experience this? Share how you manage these in the comments below.