Are Systems Engineers Complete Losers When it Comes to Communication?
by Chris Rupp
The systems development industry is frequently shaken by negative reports, such as the mishaps and delays that plagued the Toll Collect system in Germany or cars that break down due to software defects. Many people wonder what it is that ails modern systems development. Why is it so hard to build systems that realize user requirements when our technology allows us to do almost anything? Are systems engineers losers when it comes to communicating about the requirements? Can the problem be solved by an agile process and direct communication between system users and developers? If so, which fields of knowledge must be added to an agile process in order to ensure that knowledge transfer works?
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Agile and Traditional development?
You seem to be of the impression that Agile methodologies are defined by face to face conversation with end users, while traditional methods focus on documentation.
This is not true, and has never been true.
Rapid Application Development, that is having face to face meetings with devs and customers to define and design the system, was first coined in 1991, about 5 years before Agile was talked about, and 10 years before the Agile Manifesto was written. These sort of sessions are often used in a traditional development setting.
The difference between agile and traditional is not the dependency on documentation or face to face communication. The difference is how the project members are managed and how the work is broken up.
What you are really comparing here is simply the focus on documentation rather than face to face meetings, and has nothing to do with Agile versus Traditional methods.
You raise good points in the article. I've often found that terminology is the primary stumbling block in understanding. However, it's ironic that in an article that points out how terminology impairs communication, you get the main terminology confused.