SOFTWARE PROCESSES: OLD PETUNIAS IN NEW BOWLS?
Pär J. Ågerfalk, Brian F. Fitzgerald · 2006
lobalization and turbulent business environments are two factors that create significant challenges for software organizations today. In the wake of the IT downturn, many organizations have turned toward globally distributed software development (GSD) in their quest for the silver bullet of high-quality software delivered cheaply and quickly. At the same time, the increasingly volatile requirements in the business environment and the general trend toward leanness have led to a focus on more flexible, agile approaches as a potential solution. Despite 50 years of software development experience, the perception of the so-called “software crisis” persists in many quarters, with continued instances of software projects exceeding budgets, and development schedules, and exhibiting poor levels of quality when completed—if completed at all. In recent years, agile methods have been proposed as a new, practice-led, paradigm that potentially addresses these problems by promoting communication, flexibility, innovation, and teamwork. Such methods differ significantly from the traditional plan-based approaches emphasizing development productivity rather than