Have you ever heard of SEMA? It's a fairly esoteric system for measuring how
good a software team is. No, wait! Don't follow that link! It will take you
about six years just to understand that stuff. So I've come up with my own,
highly irresponsible, sloppy test to rate the quality of a software team.
The great part about it is that it takes about 3 minutes. With all the time
you save, you can go to medical school.
Joel Spolsky
"The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code"
Related:
A common misconception, I assume popularized by Hollywood is that as you
get closer to shipping software, activity becomes frenetic as everybody
scrambles to finish all the things that need to be done in time for the
deadline....