Quality over quantity all the time in software.
The tortoise beats the hare in the famous race. Zooming ahead and then going back to fix things loses to taking the time to do correctly the first time.
We should teach people how to build quality into their software engineering work. This takes time at the start, but pays off when more work is added later. And work is always added later. This is slow to teach too, but is a valuable skillset. Teach them patience too.
The first version is only that. The beginning. Most applications should expect to last 10-20 years at least, right? That means getting the product out the door, is only the beginning.
There are different skills to apply
This means talking about tests for the code. All code should have tests. Ideally these are behaviour driven development tests, and/or test driven development. With beginners learning software development and engineering that might come later.
From the organisation side this means talking about trunk-based development to speed up feedback. It also means talking about pairing and mobbing too, as means to improve the code and spread knowledge within the team.
Talking about working in small slices is also important. Small vertical slices provide regular wins and make it easier to manage the work, as there a fewer components.
None of this is fancy, or complicated. These are proven approaches to software development and engineering. They tend to be forgotten in the debates about project management and the framework wars.
Teach your people the basics
These are all skills that can be taught to people in an experiential manner. Give them time and space to try them, and to use them in their work. They all take practice too. They should not expect to master them quickly. I’ve seen people I know comment that after doing them for 20 years, they still are surprised sometimes at how hard it can be to apply them in some situations.
None of them would give up on using these skills. You can also still find people writing about their benefits too. Applying these will also keep humans in the loop too. Building quality into work is not an AI accomplishment it seems.
This post is part of a project pulling together my materials and ideas about Teaching Team Collaboration: the Human-Side of Software Development for software development to students.
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The ideas above are from my book 101+ Ideas to Improve Team Collaboration, which covers all of these little things that students can do to improve their collaboration. Also available via Kindle.