Catching Defects Early in the Lifecycle

It’s generally understood that the later in the software development lifecycle you catch a defect the more costly it is to fix. To the extreme, it will never cost less to fix a bug than the moment you find it.

If that’s true for software, could it also relate to our own behavior? Consider the following pseudo-lifecycle for a long term goal:  

Could it also be true that it’s less costly to catch defects earlier in this sequence? If my goal is to run a marathon, yet I’m characterized by being unhealthy due to habits of eating poorly, it will be possible, but it’s going to take some serious effort. Compare that to the one that “fixes” the defect at the thought stage, and decides not hit the fast food drive through each night. There’s still plenty of training to be done, but the cost of the fix is much smaller than for the one who habitually indulges each evening.

Whether your goal is to be a software architect, cloud computing expert, graphic designer, effective team leader, or something else, fix your defects early. It’s much easier to change your thoughts and actions today, than it will be to alter your habits and character tomorrow.