Management Views and strategy

The key principles of business-driven development, for our business systems, remain generally applicable in the context of methods. Therefore, they serve well as guides to improved method project results. These principles are:

Adapt the process.

It is critical to right-size the development process to the needs of the project. More is not better, less is not better. Instead, the amount of formal procedure, precision, and control applied to a project must be tailored according to a variety of factors including the size and distribution of teams, the amount of externally imposed constraints, and the phase the project is in.

Balance competing stakeholder priorities.

It is important to balance often conflicting business and stakeholder needs, as well as balancing custom development versus asset reuse in the satisfaction of these needs.

Collaborate across teams.

It is important to foster optimal project-wide communication. This is achieved through proper team organization and by setting up effective collaborative environments.

Demonstrate value iteratively.

An iterative process allows the development team to better accommodate change, to obtain feedback and factor it into the project, to reduce risk early, and to adjust the process dynamically.

Elevate level of abstraction:

Elevating the level of abstraction helps reduce complexity as well as the amount of documentation required by the project. This can be achieved through reuse, the use of high-level modeling tools, and stabilizing the architecture early.

Focus continuously on quality:

Quality must be addressed throughout the project lifecycle. An iterative process is particularly adapted to achieving quality since it offers many measurement and correction opportunities.