A funny

Just yesterday the QA team did a postmortem on our project. While I don't know that the list of complaints was ordered, here is number one (emphasis mine):

The specifications ... arrived after development was nearly complete. If the specifications had been locked down earlier, the Development team would have had more time to implement the requirements correctly, and the QA team would have been able to provide better test coverage. The specifications should be clearly defined and reviewed before the development phase begins, instead of being written “after the fact.”

Complaint? That's a badge of honor. Let's repeat that first line one more time because it's so juicy. "The specifications ... arrived after development was nearly complete." We were so efficient with this development process that we had the product code complete prior to the functional specifications being stabilized.

Holy crap! By a show of hands, how many people's bosses would complain to a scenario like this:

Boss: We're working on that spec. Few more things from the customer and we'll be ready to hand it to you.
Worker Bee: OK. I'll start as soon as I get it.

(two weeks later)
Boss: Got the first draft done. We just need it reviewed and signed off on.
WB: Great. I'm working on a few other things, but I'll start as soon as I get it.

(three weeks later)
Boss: Customer had some last minute changes. As soon as upper management signs off and we get customer approval it'll be solid.
WB: That's good news. We don't want to change the code mid-way because the customer changed their mind on the product.

...

(five weeks later)
Boss: OK. We finally got sign off from everyone. Here's the final first version. Any more changes we'll file change requests for. You can go ahead and get started.
WB: Finally. That's great. I finished writing the entire product to spec last week.