The Industry

The Guerrilla Methodology

There is a lot to say on this subject, and this will just be a gentle introduction.

We have seen a log of methodologies come. We have seen a lot of methodologies go.

Where to they go? They go into the Guerrilla Methodology Toolbox.

Top-Down, Bottom-Up, Step-Wise Refinement, Flow Charts, Structured Code Reviews, Nightly Builds, the multitudinous versions of the Spiral Methodology, UML.

Many of the methodologies not mentioned are just various versions of the Spiral Methodology. With Waterfall, you go around the spiral once every one to ten years or so. With Agile now, it is one to four weeks. With the Guerrilla Methodology, it is anywhere from ten times a day to once every ten years.

You got your coding methodologies, your standardizing methodologies, your defect management methodologies, your role assignment methodologies, your release methodologies, your build methodologies, your code and GUI design methodologies.

Most of the time the industry gets on some bandwagon or another, and decides a new methodology is the all-encompassing Methodology to End All Methodologies.

And then methodology consultants make a lot of money and a company or two at the center makes (sells for) several billion.

And then the industry starts it all over again.

The Guerrilla Methodology uses all of these techniques - or none - or creates new ones. Whatever best suits the situation on the ground. This is a economic war, between a company and their competition. Whoever gets the product to market first, best, and with the most flexibility wins the battle.

Most companies will follow the extremely dogmatic demands of our industry, spending large amounts of money updating to the latest approved one-size-fits-all methodology [or try and swim in the rapids of the tower of Babel we have now]. But the smart company will not be dogmatic. They will not play ‘fair’. The will play smart.

They will adjust and optimize their processes, identifying which areas need which methodology(s). They will take into account their rock stars, if any. They will take into account their natural leaders, if any. They will take into account the nature of their product, their industry, their history, their demographic, their culture, their needs, their problems, their successes, their resources….

Smart companies, companies that want to use IT to help beat their competition in the marketplace, will focus on winning, and not on the encroaching, interfering, constricting, expensive Methodology of The Week. They will strip the latest Methodology bare, take the nuggets it has to offer, and leave the rest to choke their competition.

Tags: Guerrilla, Methodology