System Development Methods

a professional reading list compiled by Daniel Brockman

Alistair Cockburn

Paper: "Characterizing People as Non-Linear, First-Order Components in Software Development" o0o
"People's characteristics are a first-order success driver, not a second-order one. "
"Almost any methodology can be made to work on some project."

Martin Fowler

Paper: "The New Methodology" o0o
"People who work on methodology are not very good at identifying boundary conditions: the places where the methodology passes from appropriate in inappropriate."
"A project that's on-time and on-cost is considered to be a success. This measurement is nonsense to an agile environment. For agilists the question is business value - did the customer get software that's more valuable to them than the cost put into it."

Manifesto for Agile Software Development o0o

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

Samizdat