Lessons in Agility From Internet-Based Development

0 7 4 0 7 4 5 9 / 0 2 / $ 1 7 . 0 0 © 2 0 0 2 I E E E In April 2000, the Internet bubble burst and the business world was brought back to reality, discovering that business fundamentals hadn’t changed. However, it isn’t so clear whether the fundamental rules of software development have changed. I worked as a software process consultant to two Internet startups during the boom— let’s call them XYZ.net and PQR.com to protect their identities, as both are still in business. XYZ.net focused on fundamental infrastructure services for Internet users and, when I joined them, was about to start work on its third generation of software to support its upcoming initial public offering. PQR.com was an online electronic retailer in the process of re-architecting its system to support its projected growth and to position itself for a future IPO. The two common factors between the companies were my involvement and the fact that both organizations were facing phenomenal business growth and thus needed to re-architect and redevelop their systems. They were also hiring new developers to help them deliver this new software: XYZ.net had grown from three to 30 developers in less than a year, and PQR.com had grown from the original two founders to 25 developers in a similar time frame. Both companies felt they needed a more mature software process that included software modeling. Both organizations had very young staff—the average age was in the mid-20s—and both had teamoriented cultures. Furthermore, both companies wanted to define, and then train their staff in, a version of the Rational Unified Process1 tailored to meet their specific situations, with extensions from other software processes.2,3 Both organizations wanted to be able to claim to potential investors that they were using an accredited software process yet didn’t want focus