Growing Systems In Emergent Organizations

CommunicationsOfTheAssociationForComputingMachinery, Aug 99, p 117+. by DuaneTruex?, RichardBaskerville?, HeinzKlein?.

ACM Digital Library Subscribers can access it online

   http://www.acm.org/pubs/citations/journals/cacm/1999-42-8/p117-truex/

Mostly a manifesto, but it announces:

• lengthy A & D are poor investments
• user satisfaction is impossible
• abstract requirements are largely imaginary
• complete and unambiguous specifications are ineffectual

Replace instead with (it says)

• always analysis (as an ongoing service)
• dynamic requirements negotiation
• incomplete and usefully ambiguous specifications
• continuous redevelopment
• adaptability orientation

A primary position is that the IS systems in an Emmergent Organization will always be changing. This causes those systems to always be in maintenance mode. As a result, the up-front analysis and design that is traditionally perform to reduce maintenance costs is ultimately wasted time.

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These conclusions are remarkably close to many of the new RapidDevelopment methodologies such as ExtremeProgramming or AdaptiveSoftwareDevelopment. However, it differs dramatically in its view of the user and user-satisfaction.

Has anyone found this or related articles online?

    Here is an online version: http://www.cis.gsu.edu/~dtruex/Presentations/CACM%20GrowingReprint.pdf

An article in Software Development magazine seems to suggest the same thing: http://www.sdmagazine.com/supplement/ppm/features/s999mf.shtml. JimHighsmith is publishing AdaptiveSoftwareDevelopment this year.