Today we will review some questions made by Alistair Cockburn, these are part of his research performed over a ten-year period, interviewing project teams, participating directly on projects, and reviewing proposals and case studies [1].

Q1. Do we need yet another software development methodology, or can we expect a convergence and reduction at some point in time?
Q2. If convergence, what must be the characteristics of the converged methodology? If no convergence, how can project teams deal with the growing number of methodologies?
Q3. How does the methodology relate to the people on the project?

Questions extracted from Alistair Cockburn’s work “People and Methodologies in Software Development”

These questions will be asked based on own analysis, making the Q2 divided in two.

Do we need yet another software development methodology, or can we expect a convergence and reduction at some point in time?

Software development isn’t an exact science, so the methodologies will appear, they will evolve, and mix with others or disappear; this is something inherent to the human species, because the human being is in constant change and the software must companion that change to satisfy their needs.

The convergence will be a reality at some point, but not for a long time; this is because the changing nature of the human being.

If convergence, what must be the characteristics of the converged methodology?

It must be:

• For small groups (from 2 to 7 people)
• With a daily overview of the progress on the tasks being made
• The client must be part of the process
• A cyclic process, where at the end of each loop the group will evaluate their work and define the work to do at the next loop

If no convergence, how can project teams deal with the growing number of methodologies?

The teams may select each methodology based on the project’s parameters, because each methodology is oriented to a type of project, team size or requirements.

Today we have a lot of methodologies (Rational Unified Process, Microsoft Solution Framework, Crystal Methodologies, Scrum, XP, Kanban) each one oriented to different types of problems and good options nowadays.

How does the methodology relate to the people on the project?

The methodology relates in many ways to the people:

• To the team: Tells how must be formed each team and team members
• To the members: Tells each member work and responsibility
• To the external: Tells how communicates the external organizations with the team

References

1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253582591_People_and_Methodologies_in_Software_Development