The enduring contradictions of new software development approaches: a response to ‘Persistent Problems and Practices in ISD’

In ‘Persistent Problems and Practices in Information Systems Development’, Kautz et al . (2007) offer a thoughtful and original perspective on the nature of high-speed software development practices. They offer controversy over the degree to which the set of software development practices, variously called agile methodology, internet speed methodology and short cycle time development, are different from more traditional or plan-based development approaches. We heartily welcome such published research and conference debates that reflect the various views on this issue (Glass 2003; Merisalo-Rantanen et al ., 2005). Kautz et al . are provocative. They lead us to wonder how history might regard software development agility. Will agile methods become a milestone in software development? Will these methods mark a bifurcation of practice where agile methods will have offered a revolutionary alternative to plan-based approaches? Or, will, instead, agile methods someday be remembered as a bogus bait-and-switch? Have unwitting developers, desperate to overcome incredibly competitive market conditions, actually adopted traditional plan-based systems development practices in a deluded belief that these veteran practices were somehow novel and revolutionary? Kautz et al . (2007) build insights from their argumentation and empirical research that call for more extensive frameworks for considering these practices. They provide us with an example of such an alternative framing of the problems and practices. Through this different analytical framework, they illustrate how accentuated evolution is less than a revolution. This analysis finds that the software development problems are basically the same as always and that the ‘new’ practices are also basically the same as always. Such a result would indeed contradict our findings (Baskerville et al ., 2003).