Extracted from Chapter 2 of Crystal Clear: A Human-Powered Methodology for Small Teams

I recently awoke to the realization that top consultants trade notes about the properties of a project rather than on the procedures followed. They inquire after the health of the project: “Is there a mission statement and a project plan? Do they deliver frequently? Are the sponsor and various expert users in close contact with the team?”

Consequently, and in a departure from the way in which a methodology is usually described, I ask Crystal Clear teams to target key properties for the project. “Doing Crystal Clear” becomes achieving the properties rather than following procedures. Two motives drive this shift from procedures to properties:

Extracted from Crystal Clear: A Human-Powered Methodology for Small Teams

Thanks to David Brady for this note:

Ed Yourdon seems to have fallen off my radar so far this century. Last century I read a lot of his stuff and came to respect him as a man who knows what he’s talking about when it comes to IT and software development.

(If you haven’t heard of him, or don’t believe me just look at the list of books he’s written.)

I recently discovered that he has a blog, and from there that he has recently been to the Agile 2010 conference. In fact it appears that the whole Agile thing has, to a large part, passed him by.