Image by pdweinstein via Flickr
When I initially envisioned the article Web Development: Before and After the Client (local copy), my initial idea was to draw a line connecting Orbit Media Studio‘s overall business strategy, through the implementation of specific development methodologies, to the end result of the type of service Orbit offers.
Consider the description for Orbit’s method of enhancing their content management system; “the focus is on breaking down the feature into workable steps and rapidly building them.” This incremental process allows Orbit to keep coding solutions simple, quickly incorporate lessons learned from previous projects and sustain development of their codebase for the long term;
In doing so we consider what has worked for clients in the past along with growing trends such as social media integration.
But once a client enters the picture the goals change. A client has specific objectives, chief among them the desire for a stable website that is delivered on time and on budget. The change in goals requires a change in methodology;
In this sequential development process each step follows from the last. There is a specific beginning and ending. One step cannot be started until the previous step is completed and approved.
Thus, while these two methods have distinctly different goals unto themselves, Orbit uses both to bring about a specific end result in desired quality of results.
The point that I was trying to make got me wondering. Given a set of goals would most developers, or project managers, choose the development method(s) best suited to realizing those goals? Or would they choose the one they are most comfortable with?
Sure, most project managers or software engineers would recognize the different methodologies described above and that they focus on different objectives. But what’s the most common way a development process is chosen?
Unfortunately, my experience over the years leads me to believe that most choose the one they know the best, is in fashion or is what is used “in-house.” In fact many places I’ve interviewed at consider development methodologies like software platforms, they maybe an “Agile shop” just as much as they are a Mac or PHP shop.
This lack of connection between desired outcome and actual process haunts both business and technology managers in my opinion.
Then again, maybe I’ve had an odd experience with my career thus far?
Postscript: In perhaps an answer to my own question, while I was drafting this blog post, I came across this article, Design Driven Development. The post, from a Boston-based web design firm, outlines a similar organic evolution of their development process.