Principles of Evolutionary Architecture & Design for Agile PM (Part 2)

Dr. Rico has been a leader in support of major U.S. government agencies for 25 years. He's led many Cloud, Lean, Agile, SOA, Web Services, Six Sigma, FOSS, ISO 9001, CMMI and SW-CMM projects. He specializes in IT investment analysis, portfolio valuation and organizational change. He's been an international keynote speaker, presented at leading conferences, written six textbooks and published numerous articles. He’s also a frequent PMI, APLN, INCOSE, SPIN and conference speaker. For more see davidfrico.com.

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Topics: Agile, Information Technology, Quality, Requirements Management, Scope Management

Continued from Part 1.

Our knowledge as a discipline with respect to the principles of "evolutionary project management, systems and software development, architecture, design, development, test and evaluation" is meager. The principle of big upfront architecture and design is still considered a best practice. It is the result of traditional project management and systems development methods based on the notion that 100 percent of the scope is predictable at the project's start. However, we're slowly coming to the realization that successful architecture and design is an amalgamation of renovations over long periods of time:

Cathedrals: Many historical cathedrals are excellent examples of evolutionary design principles. They were envisioned by their creators to be functional places of worship as well as architectural wonders. They were often meant to be symbols of political, economic and religious power by newly created nation-states. This presented many opportunities as well as problems. They were free from political bureaucracy hindering their design and construction. However, newly forming nation states had other problems. They were often at war with indigenous populations as well as global powers for regional control. Financial resources were in short supply, trade routes were hazardous at best and the industrial revolution hadn't quite …

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