Leading Lean Software Development--fads

[Jeff Langr]

Greetings Ms Poppendieck,

I noted a chapter in the ToC of Leading Lean Software Development entitled "Fads." Later in the book there are discussions of things like TDD and CI. To what extent do you view practices like these as fads? Do you foresee other practices supplanting these in the near future?

thanks!

[Mary Poppendieck]

On the contrary, Chapter two looks at a lot of software "fads", only to conclude that precursors of TDD and Continuous Integration have been around for a very long time, and these are most certainly NOT fads. We find that project management practices have come and gone over the years, but solid technical practices such as TDD and Continuous Integration have never gone out of style - and I don't expect they every will. Tools will make good technical practices easier over time, and they might go by different names and have slightly different implementations, but techniques to be sure you know you are building the right thing at all times are pretty fundamental to software development, I think.

A large portion of Chapter 2, including the section on fads, has been released to be posted on TechTarget’s SearchSoftwareQuality.com, but it hasn't been posted yet.