Why Software Costs Spiral: Process Goals Are Quietly Overriding Product Goals

Software development costs often remain misunderstood because every system is built only once, leaving no alternative version to compare against or benchmark for quality. When systems become slow and expensive to change, the blame typically falls on complexity or shifting requirements rather than the original architectural decisions. A key driver of this problem is teams prioritising process compliance — such as closing sprint tickets on time — over building the right product. Mid-sprint discoveries that a task is wrongly scoped are frequently suppressed to meet sprint deadlines, turning a structural flaw into a recurring, invisible cost. This pattern has persisted for decades partly because it is never clearly identified as a mistake in how teams measure and reward their own work.