Re: Experience is a harsh teacher
Pretty much this ^^
Inhouse development is different as you can sometimes amortize what's needed for true testing over multiple projects, if brought in on off projects you are in trouble, it goes like this
Go-Live dates and feature lists are not normally set by the worker techs.
They are told 'here are 200 features that have to be in day 1' (often not this simple, see Agile)
Then they are told when day 1 is, at some point in the project.
There can be any number of reasons this date is picked: could be a post year end period, all company presentation, 'quiet period', Christmas, end of life date on previous product, IPO date, astrologer says so etc..
Load testing is then put at number 201 on the list, some people churn happens on the project, it never happens.
The above list is fine in a perfect world, you will be lucky if you are ever on a project that can do it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
