The trouble with Americans is that they haven't read the minutes from the previous meeting
- Adlai Stevenson
This might be said of others outside America as well. Much of the discussion (of sorts) is missing the connection with the reality of the past:
- Iterative and incremental development is mandated by DoD 5000.02
- Deliverables of working product are part of Integrated Master Plan / Integrated Master Schedule procurement
- Test driven software is the basis of DO-178 flight controls design and development.
- Many defense contracts limit the duration of a Work Package to crossing only one accounting period
- DoD 5000.02 describes "emergent" requirements over the procurement lifecycle. Within a Milestone, Program Events assess the increasing maturity of the product.
For real success in the enterprise IT world, we must end the use of red herrings, like "waterfall," "command and control," high ceremony references and start reading about how major enterprise systems have been developed for decades. And most importantly move on past those ancedotal experiences and look for examples of how improvements have been made in domains where "mission critical" is the starting point.
