Suggested Term: Gift

“Gift”

Consider using Gift in place of Deliver.

I’m not a fan of the verb deliver or the noun deliverable in the context of web application production. When I think of delivery, I think of the UPS guy leaving a non-descript brown package at my door, and walking away taking no responsibility for the quality or fitness of the product inside. In searching for a better term, I arrived at the word gift. Granted, using the term gift in place of deliver in a business environment is a bit of a stretch. However, for the giver, the term gift carries with it a sense of accountability and the anticipation of welcoming enthusiasm from the recipient. If I am on a production team that will be handing off a web application to an altogether different sustainment team, I am likely to do better work if I think in terms of gifting the application I’ve helped to produce as opposed to delivering it and bailing undetected. Also, like the terms develop and build, deliver connotes the problematic misconception of finality.

Advertisement