[Request]: Consider decreasing use of the word "build" in regards to software

[ameliaswong]

A description of the work

"The De-risking Guide talks about “building software” a lot, but this embeds a dev / ops separation. The metaphor implies a situation like a house, where building it is separate from living in it. In software, good practice is a steady flow of change which might be building, replacing, removing, reorganizing, measuring or any number of different changes.

A simple substitution is “deliver,” but there might be a more nuanced wording depending on the specific use."

Context: When the FFS Team revised the De-risking Guide, it kept a list of backlog items for possibly addressing in future iterations. As the project lead during close-out, I transferred that list to the Guides repo.

Point of contact on this issue

Amelia Wong

Reproduction steps (if necessary)

No response

Skills Needed

• Any Human
• Design
• Content
• Engineering
• Acquisition
• Product
• Other

Does this need to happen in the next 2 weeks?

• Yes
• No

How much time do you anticipate this work taking?

8 hours

Acceptance Criteria

As the description suggests, decreasing the use of "build" in relation to software in the De-risking Guide 2.0's text is thought to contribute less to the inaccurate separation of development from operations. This is either a question of aligning with 18F current best practices around how we talk about what we do, and/or a question for user research that would try to suss out if "building software" leads readers to think simplistically and inaccurately about the nature of software production and maintenance. Isolating that effect would take serious effort, so it may make more sense to just figure out if changing the phrasing aligns with 18F's current stance.

"Done" looks like having relevant conversations (probably with LT outreach lead and the director of the product chapter), making a decision, changing the copy if necessary.