Section 12.7. Analysis Paralysis

12.7. Analysis Paralysis

The catchy phrase "analysis paralysis" has become a cliché. (And how could it not, being so catchy?) What it refers to, of course, is the tendency to become bogged down in details; or the tendency to refuse to start implementation until you are certain that your design is "right."

This is where using a "spiral" development model can pay off. By doing frequent small releases, you can expose subtle design flaws at an earlier stage in development. Often, you can (to trot out another trendy term) "refactor" a small part of your design or implementation. If you have clean object interfaces, this can often be done with minimal disruption because a good object model hides implementation details within classes.

In most cases it is best, once you have the use cases and requirements, to proceed to a prototype object model and learn by doing.