""Not Invented Here" syndrome: Expressed most commonly in a desire for everything needed to be developed in house. E.g.: “Need a CMS? Let’s make our own from scratch!” Perhaps, you work at a place where all your teammates do is constantly bring you bad ideas. Are they really all terrible? Or are only your ideas good enough for the organization? Not Invented Here can also apply to your own head, not just the organization."<p>The answer is yes, they (CMSes) are all terrible. :)<p>"No dedicated QA for externally-facing software: Someone who is experienced at breaking software should have a crack at it before it goes to users. Developers (including me) are too enamored with their own work to really take the time to break it, so someone with a sense of pride in finding problems needs to be given the task."<p>Having dedicated QA is not always good. In fact it is often counter-productive.<p>"Low Joel Test score: The Joel Test remains a great indicator of institutional ego. A team that scores low on the Joel Test does so because someone along the way decided that, "nah, we don't need that here, we are special", and almost certainly they are not. I have yet to hear of a team with a legitimate reason for a low Joel Test score."<p>The joel test is actually quite out of date. Specifically the stuff about fixing bugs before writing features, hallway usability testing, testers, having a 'spec', and having a bug database are all not necessary or good to have in all cases.