As a subscriber of Businessweek, I usually start from the back. That’s where Jack and Suzy Welch answer questions from the readers. In the June 30th publication, there is a quote from the Welch’s that hits upon a recurring theme of mine, and I’d like to share it. They talk about the challenge of balancing future requirements with current requirements.

The second quarter was another successful three months for yuwantithwhen.com. A number of essays were very popular with the site’s visitors. The most popular essay for the quarter was “Why It Takes So Long.” Thanks to Steve Johnson over at Pragmatic Marketing for directing his readers to the posting. There are often very good reasons it takes longer than expected to deliver a software product, but there are things that we often do to make projects take longer than they should. I’m thinking of writing the sequel to the essay: “Why it Takes Longer Than it Should.” I’m not sure when I’ll pen that one, but it’s in the queue.

The web changes everything. Now that so much software is offered for free, the cost barrier for switching vendors is gone. Consequently, high quality is even more important when the barrier to switching vendors is nearly zero. Many times, quality is more important to your customers than new features.

It’s suggested that the web has changed everything. Whatever requirements there were for delivering desktop applications, the requirements for delivering web applications has changed. For the web, the thinking goes; delivery of new features to customers is paramount to remain competitive. Maybe it’s true, but what’s the evidence? My own experience with popular web sites does not support this conclusion.