IT Process and Models over Time

I recently came across this article:
My 20-Year Experience of Software Development Methodologies

The author discusses the methodologies he’s followed on various projects through the years, discusses the issues with each, and, presents that these are “collective fictions” that allow development teams to collaborate, an idea presented in the book Sapiens to describe how societies function in larger groups.

It’s an interesting read, and also interesting to reflect, on the changing processes and models used since I started working in software development. In 2006, the organization I worked for talked about reaching CMMI Level 3, and following a waterfall development model. By 2013, we were attending sessions on Six Sigma. In recent years, the interest has been in Agile/SCRUM.

The author accepts that methodologies are required to function at scale, but ultimately, what’s important is that you have teams that trust each other, and a structure in which agreements can be found. It will be interesting to see which models are trending 12 years from now.