Adaptive Software Development: A Collaborative Approach to Managing Complex Systems

This is the digital version of the printed book (Copyright © 2000).

Winner of the 2001 Software Development Jolt Product Excellence Award

This innovative text offers a practical, realistic approach to managing high-speed, high-change software development projects. Consultant James A. Highsmith shows readers how to increase collaboration and adapt to uncertainty.

Many organizations start high-speed, high-change projects without knowing how to do them–and even worse, without knowing they don’t know. Successful completion of these projects is often at the expense of the project team.

Adaptive Software Development emphasizes an adaptive, collaborative approach to software development. The concepts allow developers to “scale-up” rapid application development and extreme programming approaches for use on larger, more complex projects.

The four goals of the book are to 

• support an adaptive culture or mindset, in which change and uncertainty are assumed to be the natural state–not a false expectation of order
• introduce frameworks to guide the iterative process of managing change
• institute collaboration, the interaction of people on three levels: interpersonal, cultural, and structural
• add rigor and discipline to the RAD approach, making it scalable to the uncertainty and complexity of real-life undertakings