I think the article is very relevant and I agree with the article's observation that the methodologies are perhaps less important than human relationships.
However, I think the failure of methodologies can be ascribed to treating SW development as a sort of reproducible, factory process. Two major misconceptions that come out of that:
1. Assuming that the progress on SW development is linear, and the sum of software is exactly the sum of its parts. In reality, SW development process is more like an S-curve, where you plan a lot in the beginning (so coding comes slower), then you speed up because most of the issues are clear and the research is done, and then you slow down back again as you're trying to fine-tune the whole result. This inherent non-linearity is really difficult for the "bean counters" to deal with.
2. Assuming that the people should operate as workers on assembly line, that is, the architects designs, programmer codes, QA tests, support does fixes.. In reality, it's more like a workshop operation - ideally people live with each feature for the whole lifecycle.
What always amazes me, though. Big pop art productions like computer games or movies.. they often run on a schedule, and yet are as creative or diverse as SW development. So it seems like there perhaps should be a methodology.
However, I think the failure of methodologies can be ascribed to treating SW development as a sort of reproducible, factory process. Two major misconceptions that come out of that:
1. Assuming that the progress on SW development is linear, and the sum of software is exactly the sum of its parts. In reality, SW development process is more like an S-curve, where you plan a lot in the beginning (so coding comes slower), then you speed up because most of the issues are clear and the research is done, and then you slow down back again as you're trying to fine-tune the whole result. This inherent non-linearity is really difficult for the "bean counters" to deal with.
2. Assuming that the people should operate as workers on assembly line, that is, the architects designs, programmer codes, QA tests, support does fixes.. In reality, it's more like a workshop operation - ideally people live with each feature for the whole lifecycle.
What always amazes me, though. Big pop art productions like computer games or movies.. they often run on a schedule, and yet are as creative or diverse as SW development. So it seems like there perhaps should be a methodology.