Balancing Agility and Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed

Preface

Why We Wrote This Book

In the last few years, two ostensibly conflicting approaches to software development have competed for hegemony. Agile method supporters released a manifesto that shifts the focus from traditional plan-driven, process-based methods to lighter, more adaptive paradigms. Traditional methods have reasserted the need for strong process discipline and rigorous practices. True believers on both sides have raised strident, often antagonistic, voices.

We wrote this book for the rest of us—those caught in the middle of the method wars, simply trying to get our projects completed and accepted within too-tight schedules and budgets. We hope to clarify the perplexity about the roles of discipline, agility, and process in ...