When standards and best practices are ignored

One purpose for having standards and best practices is to illustrate what experience has shown to be a preferred sequence of events. For example, experience has shown it best to perform requirements analysis prior to doing design, design should be done prior to doing software coding, and software coding should be done prior to systems testing. This does not mean each event must be completed prior to going to the next event, nor that the sequence is absolute. However, experience has shown that when the identified sequence is violated (without a justified technical or business reason), risk and cost can increase to the point where the overall effort may fail. This paper presents an actual situation where the standard software model of events and best practices are ignored and the resulting complications. Another problem was late insertion of a procedural requirement that was misunderstood