Daily Activities of the Software Developer

¶ … Life: Balancing Agility and Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed

Boehem and Turner define the first part of their book Balancing Agility and Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed along the daily life of a traditional software developer, following the course of a spiral project development, designed to reduce potential defects, and then providing Model-Based Software Engineering (MBASE) and the Rational Unified Process as potential alternative models with which developers can use. The potential problems both models can face often recall the depressing Beatles song of the same name, "A Day in the Life." Boehm and Turner essentially use both of their examples to advise potential developers against using a risky, unplanned strategy. This may be based in the author's background in government and academic design sectors, rather than the faster pace of private industry.

When advising the reader about finding the best balance between agility and discipline, they tend to urge on the side of caution or the home ground. The authors stress the need to be "plan-driven" rather than spontaneous or agile to reduce system faults and attacks from hackers, as embodied in the prototyping plan of project development, stressing the need to have a coherent model throughout the design process.

While this cautious strategy may be useful in finding the most efficient contractor at the lowest cost for a government agency, and best to design a system that must be as fault-free and well-protected as possible, and integrates well with currently existing systems, this approach often lacks the spontaneity required for private industry and design, as well as the need for speed and value embodied by the second methodology they look less favorably upon the cautious, protective strategy against protecting against system flaws. Managers are also more apt to set goals less specific to the system, and more focused upon increasing workplace productivity, without providing a clear focus as to how they intend the system to achieve this objective. Private industry may demand a more unified process with a more broad-based conceptual model that does away with old methods of operating and planning, thus Rational Unified Process' more holistic approach may be more suitable, although it is not likely to be suited to protocol-heavy environments with longstanding and inflexible operating procedures, such as the government or older and more inflexible business organizations.