Many proponents of this or that methodology are ruthlessly black-and-white about the implementation of it. In many cases, it’s all or nothing. I think that is one big reason why so many implementations fail.

Instead, a gradual transition plan over the course of years is probably the way to go. It is true that the entire organization needs to embrace a process as a part of the culture for optimal results….and that shift only happens over a period of time unless you are building the organization from scratch.

“Pick some set of practices and adopt them as you go, leaving others out for a later time.”

This sounds like being ‘Agile’ with Agile

I wonder what the future will be for software development. I have been in engineering long enough to have lived through the earliest software life cycles that were force-fit into the then proven hardware processes, with the now predictable failures. From there they morphed into to the spiral and other more ‘agile-like’ techniques.

So, what’s after Agile? Perhaps suppliers will sell development platforms for the product directly to the customer and let the customer add the features they want. In fact, you need look no further than the blog engine running this website: Wordpress. Hundreds of high-quality extensions allow us ‘customers’ to tailor the product to just what we want, when we want it. What’s next?