Software complexity limit

Software development is a sequential process. The product is always being developed bit by bit. The main problem arises when new bits added to the future product break the previous functionality. This is called complexity limit. Once the product developed reaches its complexity limit no reasonable development becomes possible. The complexity limit is obviously subject to both the design and the process. The difference between them is that if the design adds absolute value in fighting with complexity the process adds relative. That means that the process can leverage the extent of the final product, but cannot define it. As example, suppose that the product is 100 percent functionality and with some given design the complexity limit appears at about 50 percent. Next suppose that the process may leverage the extent by 20 percent of the reached extent. So the final product will have 50+50*0.2 = 60 percent of desired functionality. Now if the design is poor and allows going only up to say 20 percent, then the gain obtained from the process is 20*0.2 = 4 percent (totalling 24). If the design is good allowing 80 percent with no process, then the process will add 16 percent (totalling 96).

Under design I mean here all development solutions on the whole scale from architectural to coding. Under process I mean here the standards accepted by the development team.