Balancing Agility and Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed (Paperback)
In the last few years, two ostensibly conflicting approaches to software development have competed for hegemony. Agile method supporters released a manifesto that shifts the focus from traditional plan-driven, process-based methods to lighter, more adaptive paradigms. Traditional methods have reasserted the need for strong process discipline and rigorous practices. True believers on both sides have raised strident, often antagonistic, voices. We wrote this book for the rest of us, those caught in the middle of the method wars simply trying to get our projects completed and accepted within too-tight schedules and budgets. We hope to clarify the perplexity about the roles of discipline, agility, and process in software development. We objectively compare and contrast the traditional, plan-driven approaches to the newer, agile approaches and present an overview of their home grounds, strengths, and weaknesses. We then describe a risk-based approach to aid in balancing agility and discipline within a software development project.
- The first chapter sets the stage for what follows. It introduces the main points and provides an executive summary of the book.
- Chapter 2 compares the agile and plan-driven approaches and provides insight into the type of projects where each has been most successful (their home grounds).
- Chapter 3 provides an experiential introduction to the approaches by describing how both a typical and not-so-typical day might be spent using each.
- Chapter 4 presents two project case studies that illustrate the limits of pure agile and pure plan-driven implementations and the benefits of integrating the approaches.
- Chapter 5 describes a risk-based approach for making methodology decisions that integrate agile and plan-driven practices, and illustrates it with representative examples.
- Chapter 6 summarizes the material and offers some final observations.
Authors: Barry Boehm, Richard Turner
Published: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1st edition (August 15, 2003)
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