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Principle: Never Compromise Quality

This is one of the eight principles of DSDM, supporting its philosophy, and used in its process, roles and responsibilities, and products.

No one wants to compromise quality, but it happens too frequently! There are two opposing forces in play, which are the reasons for having such a principle in DSDM:

  1. Adaptive projects, because of their exploratory nature, have a risk of becoming chaotic, with poor architecture and low quality. Therefore, practitioners should pay attention to quality and make sure it’s not compromised. The Test‑Driven Development and Refactoring practices in XP are effective mechanisms to overcome this risk and ensure high quality.

  2. DSDM is based on a philosophy that implies a certain approach to project variables where time, cost, and quality are fixed, and scope is dynamic. Having a dynamic scope can reduce pressure: You’re not obligated to deliver everything by the end of the timebox; rather, you just focus on the most important things and deliver only as much as you can with the defined level of quality. This approach makes it easier not to compromise quality.

Written by Nader K. Rad

This is (and will be) a work in progress: More details will be added in the future, depending on the feedback.

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