Chapter 16: Methodologies: Putting It All Together
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Abstract
In the previous chapters, we described a range of development and management methods covering with many different aspects of complex and changing software systems. For dealing with system and application domain complexity, we described methods such as use case modeling, object modeling, applying architectural styles, reusing design patterns, and mappingof models to source code. For communicating knowledge about the system, we discussed UML diagrams, issue models, informal communication mechanisms, and documents. For dealing with change, we examined a variety of organizations, processes, and life cycles.
By now, you have an overview of the current state of the art of methods in object-oriented software engineering, which you can view as a thick cook book of recipes. In practice, however, a cookbook is rarely enough for the novice to cook a complete meal. Moreover, not all ingredients are always available, and the cook has to improvise to bridge the gaps.
In this chapter, we present methodologies as guidance for the manager to select and customize the recipe to the specific project environment. The discussion about the right methodology for software development is far from over. We present a design space ranging from light-weight approaches to heavy-weight approaches. The idea is to help you understand this space for yourself when organizing and running software projects. Although we cannot replace experience with a book, we provide actual project examples to illustrate how trade-offs are made when defining, setting up, and running a software project.
We also present case studies conducted as software engineering project courses that cover a wide range from a four-month, two-developer project collocated with the client to a distributed, one-year, 100-person project with a remote client. In each of these case studies we describe the selection of specific methods and techniques. All of our case studies involve actual clients and developers who are technically fluent with respect to programming, but new to software engineering concepts.