Adaptive Software Development: A Collaborative Approach to Managing Complex Systems

Preface

George Johnson’s In the Palaces of Memory weaves a fascinating story about one of the most complex of all biological phenomena: human memory. From Johnson’s stories of neurobiologists who study the neuron and its components—axons, synapses, dendrites—and try to model how neural cells excite each other to create patterns, to tales of computer scientists whose explorations of the mind use neural networks and artificial intelligence, the reader is drawn to the conclusion that how memory works is still shrouded in mystery.

Software development may be as close to a purely mental activity as any complex business undertaking. Just as we are puzzled by the workings of the mind, we are caught up in the enigma of how software products emerge from ...