Did software engineering exist back then.
One of them was METHOD/1 from Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). If you wanted to create a variable to hold, for example, a part number... you'd create an entry in the CASE tool for it and from then on, everyone was supposed to use that one. It would have validation rules, like 30 characters, alphanumeric, whatever.
The CASE tool would do code generation for screens and forms and whatnot. And.... that's about as much as I remember at the moment.
I worked for a company for little while that made extremely effective use of this approach allowing hundreds of devs to effectively work simultaneously on a single monolithic system. It was shocking. I was so impressed. I've still never seen any software organization so... organized. And they owed it largely to the protocols revolving around their use of a CASE tool.
As for standards you would see from one company to another - early days and lucky to have separate department use same standards. So payroll would have different standards than marketing, but separate ecosystems and less of an issue, beyond team cultural changes and analysts quirks.
But then, standards change over time and become usurped.
So could very well ask the same question in 20 years time as the approach is always changing. May even be a call for C programmers then.
"Teleportation" was not.
Now management will pay even more because they're desperate and end up with a rushed solution that breaks again in the next crisis.
Why do some people take joy in wallowing in ignorance. Sad.