Requirements will change. This is a fact of life and must be solved with a combination of soft skills and business acumen. It must be known to the project/pro

Requirements will change. This is a fact of life and must be solved with a combination of soft skills and business acumen. It must be known to the project/product leaders a change in requirements may impose rework and as such will invalidate any prior estimate. Furthermore it will require a new test plan. In a mature environment these things are clear before the changes arrive to you. In an immature environment these are risks and consequences that must be communicated back. Sometimes poor development environments are a reflection of culture. If that is the case only a leadership solution will set things on a more productive direction. In cases where leadership is present and engaged a poor development environment is the result of missing technical guidance, which is likely due to a disconnect between a plan and actual implementation reinforced by developer driven decisions. Developers should never drive the direction of a product unless they are stakeholders with liability. Just to be clear I am not a software leader. I am just an individual contributor, so take this with a grain of salt. I am a military officer though, in a secondary line of work, with director level responsibility and a large staff.