Getting it done versus getting it done right

     Pride and professionalism, these are two qualities that appear to be somewhat absent in a growing portion of today’s IT professionals.  These are two important qualities that govern how well we do our job and the level of quality placed in it.
    
     How often have you been associated with, or been witness to, an IT project that resulted in poor quality deliverables.  The deliverables where deficient in reliability, demonstrated poor quality performance, had failed components, etc....  There were probably a number of elements that contributed to these failure indicators, but let us focus on attitude.  The attitude of a growing number of today’s IT Professionals.  An attitude that says, "just get it done". 
 
     Where does this thinking originate?  Does it come from the business division of the IT world?  How about from management?  Or, is it an inherent quality in the nature of today’s IT professional?  
    
     There are multiple factors that can lead to this way of thinking.  One such factor could be attributed to the pressures applied by various areas of the business and IT management to meet deadlines.  Another factor could be scope creep?  Yet, another factor could be poor, or the lack of, planning during the early stages of the project.  Or, it could be some combination of each of these factors in conjunction with others. 
    
     This is a glaring weakness in the delivery of IT projects from all areas of involvement.  From management, to business analysts, to developers, to quality assurance, and beyond; this way of thinking infects all.  These "just get it down" attitudes may place projects in a disillusioned finished state, but are they really complete? 
    
     Can a project that will more than likely fail at the first sign of stress be classified as a finished product?  If the project has a substantial amount of rework necessary, after its release date, then is it a finished product?  In the minds of many IT individuals today; it is.  They only care about getting something, anything, which resembles the requested product into a production, or production ready, environment. 
    
     At this time, they can pass it along to someone else and claim success.  If anything breaks, then it is not their problem.  After all, they did their part, right?  It was correct according to specifications when they last touched it.  But, did they really do there job?  In their eyes and minds, they did. 

     This is the attitude and way of thinking of many IT professionals of today.  Again, where does this thinking originate.  Or, is it an inherent trait in the "qualified" professionals of today.  A huge portion of this can be attributed to the fact that many of the professionals hired in today’s market are not truly qualified to perform in the positions that they have been hired to fill.  They have a superficial view of what it takes to perform in these positions, and unknowingly, they think that they can actually do the job.  When in all actuality, they shouldn’t be there in the first place.