Introduction Nick Rees 2 October 2017

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.

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.”

Goals Goals for the morning Goals for the afternoon 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