Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers SE Radio 701: Max Guernsey, III and Luniel de Beer on Readiness in Software Engineering
Dec 30, 2025
Max Guernsey, III, a seasoned software architect, and Luniel de Beer, creator of Requirements Maturation Flow, delve into the crucial concept of readiness in software engineering. They discuss how many projects falter due to premature implementation, leading to chaos and misalignment. The duo introduces Requirements Maturation Flow, emphasizing shared understanding and tailored definitions of done and ready. Through practical examples, they illustrate how adopting RMF can alleviate technical debt and enhance team efficiency, paving the way for successful project outcomes.
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Premature Implementation Causes Most Failures
- Max realized many Scrum teams start implementation before they truly understand requirements and stakeholder expectations.
- Premature implementation creates rework, delays, defects, and technical debt according to his experience.
Three-Year Rewrite That Delivered Nothing
- Max described a bank rewrite that ran three years with no deploys and pervasive finger-pointing across roles.
- They discovered both engineering and product had deep capability gaps and needed a process wedge to force understanding.
Backlog Refinement Often Masks Readiness Gaps
- Backlog refinement meetings often treat every item equally and rely on short, generic discussions.
- That cargo-cult approach fails because many items need far more time to become implementable.
