Really.Only.Very.Rarely.

The jawbreaker above is one of the most efficient half-sentence that a client could unwittingly ruin your day with. And usually alongside your day goes most of the model you have been building up. On top of all there is this huge chasm between the thinking of the customer("Really, it's no biggie. We only have like two cases a month where this and that..") and the cruel reality of software's unforgiving nature, i.e. if you want the software handle those two-times-a-month exceptions then that piece of the software needs to be developed just as well as another piece that handles all non-exceptional cases.

Laymen have a hard time understanding it, and for us it sure feels like trying to explain the colors to a blind man. No wonder, I mean we have learned software in school for years, have been around in the industry for even more. We spend most of our time in an environment where this unforgiving nature of software is self-explanatory and taken for granted.

It hasn't been till only recently that I realised how this problem is actually an opportunity. Why this jawbreaker is not something you should loath and fear -- on the contrary. This is something that can help you deliver quality software on time.

The answer is almost here. I just need you to take a second and find out on your own.