There are two software worlds. There is the beautiful functional world of smart “tech” appliances that do Star Trek things. Then there is the world of Healthcare.gov and complex software in financial services, health care, and government, such as maintaining and securing the Department of Veterans Affairs.

As executives, system or user-experience designers, or product managers in software or software-dependent industries, we are exposed to a tremendous amount of marketing exuberance and bravado. We need answers to the many questions coming at us unrelentingly asking for decisions. Separating hype from utility can be difficult in software.

How do we better predict software acquisition outcomes in the field? How do we accomplish an order of magnitude increase in development efficiency? This book sheds light on two different sets of rules for technology along a continuum of values. These rules can determine success or failure before projects even start. Different technology acquisition criteria and different system requirements require different approaches and rules of engagement. This reality becomes manifest in contexts where we don’t even have a common language for the discussion of critical decisions. This book is an attempt to display ways to quickly establish necessary meaningful consensus in critical enterprise software development and acquisition decision making. It’s a simple way to begin quantitative, objective conversations about some of our consequential constructs in the software-enabled world. No one, including our best and brightest, really has this stuff figured out, despite many claims, as our post-pandemic and during-pandemic systemic breakdowns have shown.

This book attempts to shed some light on why our software world may be rapidly deteriorating from the proverbial “below” while moving ever onward and upward at other levels.