Pressure can be good.  It creates diamonds, right?  It can help us focus; may move us to learn something new.  It can help reduce procrastination.  However pressure can quickly turn into a bad thing if it causes us to skip important process steps or to force a release because of schedule constraints.

There is always pressure to do more with less; to get done faster or meet ambitious schedules.  But the right way of doing things should never suffer under such conditions.  The process (whatever your process happens to be) exists to provide uniformity and consistency to the end product.  This is especially important for functional safety products.  Sidestepping around the process is courting disaster.  It may be a short-term time saver, but it can mean large headaches if the product starts to malfunction in the field.

Do you want to save on the overall development lifecycle costs?  There are better long-term solutions, and considering these questions can lead you to a more productive environment:

• Have you assessed the skills and expertise of your staff?  What additional training is needed to build a top-notch staff?
• Have you determined the best person with the right skills to get the task done most efficiently?
• Do you have effective reviews at the end of your development stages? (requirements, design, implementation, test)
• Do you use a reward system that encourages doing things according to established processes?
• Do you have effective methods to change and improve outdated or incorrect processes?

Don’t be a victim of the saying “There’s never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.”