Introduction

1. Introduction Nick Rees 2 October 2017

2. Why? • The evidence is that no matter how good we are at design definition, defined deliverable software contracts carry a high risk. • Basically, there are a lot of unknowns • Consequently, agility is essential for software construction • Agility allows maximum flexibility to manage risk • Requires close stakeholder interaction to do trade-offs • This requires us to have appropriate relationships • Must avoid the us/them relationship that traditional contracting sometimes finds hard to avoid. • Focus must be on customer needs, rather than pre-defined deliverables.

3. Conway’s Law • Because Fred Brooks referred to (and named) it in his famous paper “The Mythical Man Month”, many people know “Conway’s Law” (from 1968): • “organizations which design systems …are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations”. • For some reason not many people remember his conclusion, two paragraphs later: • “Ways must be found to reward design managers for keeping their organizations lean and flexible. There is need for a philosophy of system design management which is not based on the assumption that adding manpower simply adds to productivity.”

4. Goals • Goals for the morning • Ian Spence and the office to describe where we have got to. • Ask question when you need to clarify what we say. • Goals for the afternoon • You to describe what you understandings and concerns are. • All of us to work together to reach a consensus on the answers. • Aim to converge on some basic guidelines • How we start the trains rolling • How we align our plans