Philosophical Shifts in Software Development

Drastic changes have occurred in the field of software development in the past few years. Concepts that have been proposed in recent times are very different from what has been done in the past. The philosophical shifts underlying these changes present many challenges – both technical and organizational. Such shifts are not peculiar to software development as parallels in other disciplines exist. The goal of this paper is to articulate the changes from a philosophical perspective and to examine the organizational implications that arise as a consequence. In particular, the article focuses on the conceptual differences between traditional and contemporary approaches within the context of inquiring systems, the philosophy of science, general systems theory, and soft systems methodology.