The Maslow's/Eoyang's Hierarchy of Software Development

You know the theory... You start with basic needs and you build and build until you get to self actualization, when great things happen because you have all the little things taken care of? Well I believe in that as it applies to people but also in Software Development. OK here is the Pyramid for people:



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Well I think it's a mistake to take one model and apply it 100% to another situation because it never fits 100% - but that's an entirely different discussion, for another time - remind me - Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.

But here's how I think a similar pyramid exists for software development.

Level	You Are	Action Time	Role	% of Time	Tasks/Skills	Artifact Examples
Strategy	Thinking	3-18 months	Executive	10%	Enterprise Architecture, Business Requirements, Strategy to Tactics decomposition, ROI	Business Plan, Yearly Financial Report
Tactics	Planning	1-6 months	Manager	25%	SDLC, Design, Quality, Metrics, Process, Coordination, Tactics to Implementation decomposition.	Project Plan, Design Document, Lessons Learned, Defect Reports
Implementation	Doing	0-3 months	Developer /Analyst	65%	Programming, Hardware, Software, Integration, Testing, Documentation, Deploying, Task Tracking	Application Code, System Infrastructure, Documentation