Agile Software Development by Alistair Cockburn

Author:Alistair Cockburn
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

Figure 4-9. Work expands with increasing precision level (shown for use cases).

Stability and Concurrent Development

Stability, the "likelihood of change," varies over the course of the project (Figure 4-10).

A team starts in a situation of instability. Over time, team members reduce the fluctuations and reach a varying state as the design progresses. They finally get their work relatively stable just prior to a design review or publication. At that point, the reviewers and users provide new information to the development team, which makes the work less stable again for a period.

On many projects, instability jumps unexpectedly on occasions, such as when a supplier suddenly announces that he will not deliver on time, a product does not perform as predicted, or an algorithm does not scale as expected.

You might think that you should strive for maximum stability on a project.

However, the appropriate amount of stability to target varies by topic, by project priorities, and by stage in the project. Different experts have different recommendations about how to deal with the varying rates of changes across the work products and the project stages.

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