Race Condition

Q. When does the need for rapid development take precedence over a good QA process?

A. It shouldn't ever, but it does all the time.

I work for a small company. We are in a constant state of flux. We don't have enough Developers, QA testers, Program Managers and so on. We are trying to make a break out product, and in the mean time beat everyone else to the market.

So, when the PM's are screaming that they need a fix, and you provide a fix and it breaks something else (something that is innocuous enough that you wouldn't see it without true regression testing with client data) which path do you take? You're already working 80 hours a week, so is everyone else. You don't want to not see your kid to bed so you can test this one more time all the way through before you release.