The Origins of Agile and Iterative Methods
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.19255/JMPM02502Keywords:
Iterative Design, Agile methods, Incremental and iterative development, IID, Project ManagementAbstract
Agile methods and iterative and incremental development (IID) have attracted significant attention in recent years. They are widely applied in many industries quite dissimilar to their origins in manufacturing and information system development. Agile methods and IID are part of a rich stream of research and practice that can be traced back to the 1930’s, but much of this history has been lost in recent rhetoric about these methods. The purpose of this paper is to consolidate the many streams of research and practice that have contributed to agile and IID forms of project management. This paper presents a systematic literature review connecting the fragmented streams of academic and applied literature that have historically contributed to the development of agile methods and IID, allowing a deeper view of past recent iterations of how these methods are commonly represented. We argue that although the roots of the currently popular approaches can be traced back to 1930s’, these have been mostly disassociated from present agile and IID practices due to a combination of barriers to transfer of knowledge such as divergent use of language and terminology between fields, attention decay, and the current industry-led narrative. Mapping and clarifying these historical links provides a useful perspective on contemporary project management practice and opens further possibilities for deeper research into agile project management methods.
References
Agility Forum, 1996. "Ramping up 2000" Proceedings of the Fifth National Conference, Agile Manufacturing Enterprise Forum. Boston, Agility Forum.
Andersson, R., Eriksson, H. & Torstensson, H., 2006. Similarities and differences between TQM, six sigma and lean. The TQM Magazine, 18(3), pp. 282-296.
Anonymous, 1993. New manufacturing system slowly emerging. Industrial Engineering, 25(2), p. 8.
Ballard, G. & Howell, G., 2003. Lean project management. Building Research & Information, 31(2), pp. 119-133.
Balsmeier, P. W. & Voisin, W. J., 1997. Rapid Prototyping: State of the Art Manufacturing. Industrial Management, Jan-Feb, 39(1), pp. 1-4.
Bamber, C. J., 2002. Agile Manufacturing in UK Aerospace Manufacturing Small to Medium Size Enterprises, Salford, UK: COrE Research Team, The School of Management, University of Salford, UK.
Basili, V. R. & Turner, A. J., 1975. Iterative enhancement: A practical technique for software development. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, December, SE-1(4), pp. 390-396.
Beck, K., 1999. Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change. Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458: Addison-Wesley Professional.
Beck, K., Beedle, M., van Bennekum, A., Cockburn, A., W., Cunningham, Fowler, M., Grenning, J., Highsmith, J., Hunt, A., Jeffries, R., Kern, J., Marick, B., Martin, R., Mellor, S., Schwaber, K., Sutherland, J., Thomas, D. 2001. Manifesto for Agile Software Development, http://agilemanifesto.org/ Accessed online 16/11/2018.
Bennett, N. 2017. Managing Suddessful Projects with Prince2. Stationary Office Books, London.
Bicheno, J., 1994. Cause and Effect JIT, The Essentials of Lean Manufacturing. 2nd ed. Buckingham: Moreton Press.
Boehm, B., 1986. A Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement. ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 11(4), pp. 14-24.
Boje, D. M. & Winsor, R. D., 1993. The Resurrection of Taylorism: Total Quality Management’s Hidden Agenda. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 6(4), pp. 57-70.
Booth, A., Papaioannou, D. & Sutton, A., 2012. Systematic approaches to a successful literature review. London: Sage.
Burak, K. & Codur, A. H., 2012. Regulations and software evolution: An example from the military domain. Science of Computer Programming, 77(5), pp. 636-643.
Cameron, N., 2014. NAB shares the key ingredients to digital strategy success. [Online] Available at: https://www.cmo.com.au/article/550602/nab_shares_key_ingredients_digital_strategy_success/ [Accessed 18 June 2017].
Campbell Collaboration, 2014.Campbell systematic reviews: policies and guidelines, version 1.3. Access online at https://campbellcollaboration.org/media/k2/attachments/Campbell_Policies_and_Guidelines.pdf on 26/11/2918.
Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York, 2009. Systematic reviews: CRD's guidance for undertaking reviews in health care, Layerthorpe, York: CRD, University of York.
Clement, A. & Van den Beselaar, P., 1993. A retrospective look at PD projects. Communications of the ACM, June, 36(4), pp. 29-37.
Cochrane Collaboration, 2011. Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. Available online at https://handbook-5-1.cochrane.org/ Accessed 26/11/2018.
Cockburn, A., 2007. Agile software development: the cooperative game, Upper Saddle River. NJ: Addison-Wesley.
Cockburn, A., 2014. A history of agile software development Starter Kit. [Online] Available at: http://alistair.cockburn.us/A+history+of+agile+software+development+Starter+Kit [Accessed 31 July 2017].
Cooper, H. M., 1984. The integrative research review: a systematic approach. Beverley Hills, Ca.: Sage Publications.
Cram, W. A. & Newell, S., 2016. Mindful revolution or mindless trend? Examining agile development as a management fashion. European Journal of Information Systems, 25(2), pp. 154-169.
Dana, W. H., 1993. The X-15 Lessons Learned, tech. report, California: NASA Dryden Research Facility.
De Cesare, S. et al., 2010. Examining perceptions of agility in software development practice. Communications of the ACM, 53(6), pp. 126-130.
Deming, W. E., 1986. Out of the Crisis. Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Advanced Engineering Study.
Deming, W. E., 2003. The essential Deming : leadership principles from the father of quality. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Deming Institute®, 2016. Timeline. [Online] Available at: https://deming.org/deming-the-man/timeline
Desai, S., 1998. Agile Manufacturing within the UK's Leading Manufacturing Businesses, Salford, UK: University of Salford.
Dingsoyr, T., Nerur, S., Balijepally, V. & Moe, N. B., 2012. A decade of agile methodologies: towards explaining agile software development. Journal of Systems and Software, 85(6), pp. 1213-1221.
Dove, R., 1994. The Meaning of Life and the Meaning of Agile. Production Magazine, November, pp. 23-34.
Duc A. & Abrahamsson P. 2016. Minimum Viable Product or Multiple Facet Product? The Role of MVP in Software Startups. In: Sharp H., Hall T. (eds) Agile Processes, in Software Engineering, and Extreme Programming. XP 2016. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 251. Springer, Cham.
Edmonds, E., 1974. A process for the development of software for non-technical users as an adaptive system. GENERAL SYSTEMS, Volume 19, pp. 215-218.
Edmonds, E., 1978. Adaptable interfaces for interactive systems. Liverpool, Proc. Workshop Comp. Skills, pp. 145-152.
Edmonds, E., 1982. The man-computer interface: a note on concepts and design. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 16(3), pp. 231-236.
Feigenbaum, A. V., 1961. Total Quality Control: Engineering and Management. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Fowler, M., 2007. Mocks Aren't Stubs. [Online] Available at: https://martinfowler.com/articles/mocksArentStubs.html#TheDifferenceBetweenMocksAndStubs [Accessed 11 4 2017].
Funk, J. L., 1993. Japanese Product-Development Strategies: A summary and propositions about their implementation. IEEE Transactionns on Engineering Management, 40(3), pp. 224-236.
General Electric Company, 1977. Prototype solar heating and combined heating and cooling systems (Quarterly Report No. 5), Alabama: U. S. Department of Energy.
Glas, M. & Ziemer, S., 2009. Challenges for agile development of large systems in the aviation industry. Orlando, Florida, USA, ACM, pp. 901-908.
Goldman, S. L., Nagel, R. N. & Preiss, K., 1995. Agile Competitors and Virtual Organizations Strategies for Enriching the Customer. New York, NY: Von Nostrand Reinhold.
Gough, D., 2007. Weight of Evidence: a framework for the appraisal of the quality and relevance of evidence. Research Papers in Education, June, 22(2), pp. 213-228.
Grant, M. J. & Booth, A., 2009. A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information & Libraries Journal, June, 26(2), pp. 91-108.
Griesel, M. A., 1988. Incremental Development and Prototyping in Current Laboratory Software Development Projects: Preliminary Analysis, Washington, D.C. 20546: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Grönval, E., Malmborg, L. & Messeter, J., 2016. Negotiation of values as driver in community-based PD. Aarhus, Denmark, s.n., pp. 41-50.
Grumman Aerospace Corporation, 1970. Phase B Proposal for Space Shuttle Program Study, Bethpage, Long Island, New York ll714: Grumman Aerospace Corporation.
Hammersley, M., 2013. Systematic or Unsystematic, Is That the Question? Some Reflections on the Science, Art and Politics of Reviewing. In: M. Hammersley, ed. The Myth of Research-Based Policy & Practice. London: SAGE Publications, Inc., pp. 110-119.
Hammerstrøm, K., Wade, A., Hanz, K. & Jørgensen, A.-M. K., 2009. Searching for studies: Information retrieval methods group policy brief, Oslo, Norway: The Campbell Collaboration.
Hart, C., 1998. Doing a literature review: releasing the social science research imagination. London: Sage.
Hausler, P. A., Linger, R. & Rrammen, C., 1994. Adopting Cleanroom Software Engineering with a Phased Approach. IBM Systems Journal, 33(1), pp. 89-109.
Highsmith, J., 2001. History: The Agile Manifesto. [Online] Available at: http://agilemanifesto.org/history.html [Accessed 31 July 2017].
Holmstrom, H., Fitzgerald, B., Agerfalk, P. J. & Conchuir, E. O., 2006. Agile practices reduce distance in global software development. Information Systems Management, 23(3), pp. 7-18.
Hosier, W. A., 1961. Pitfalls and Safeguards in Real-Time Digital Systems with Emphasis on Programming. IRE Transactions on Engineering Management, EM-8(2), pp. 99 - 115.
Hunter, J., Schmidt, F. & Jackson, G., 1982. Meta-Analysis: Cumulating research findings across studies. Beverly Hills, Ca.: Sage.
Iacocca Institute. 1991. 21st Century Manufacturing Enterprise Strategy: An Industry Led View of Agile Manufacturing. Iacocca Institute, Lehigh University: Bethlehem, USA.
Ishikawa, K., 1985. What is Total Quality Control?. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc..
Ishikawa, K. & Loftus, J. H., 1990. Introduction to quality control. English : 3rd ed ed. Tokyo: 3A Corporation.
Janes, A. & Succi, H., 2012. The dark side of agile software development. Tucson, Arizona, Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 19-26.
Johnson, C. L. & Smith, M., 1989. Kelly : More Than My Share of It All. 1 ed. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Jordan, J. A. & Frederick, J. M., 2001. The lean company; making the right choices. Hardcover ed. Portland: Society of Mfganufacturing Engineers.
Juran, J. M., 1999. Juran’s Quality Handbook. Fifth Edition ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kahneman, D., 2011. Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Kasarda, J. D. & Rondinelli, D. A., 1998. Innovative Infrastructure for Agile Manufacturers. Sloan Management Review, 39(2), pp. 73-82.
Kidd, P. T., 1995. Agile manufacturing: a strategy for the 21st century. Agile Manufacturing (Digest No.1995/179), IEE Colloquium on, 1995(179), pp. 1-6.
Klefsjö, B., Håkan, W. & Edgeman, R., 2001. Six sigma seen as a methodology for total quality management. Measuring Business Excellence, 5(1), pp. 31-35.
Knight, J. C., 1981. Production of Reliable Flight-Crucial Software: Validation Methods Research for Fault-Tolerant Avionics and Control Systems Sub-Working-Group Meeting. Research Triangle Institute Research Triangle Park, NASA, p. 30.
Ko, D. & Kirsch, L. 2017. The hybrid IT project manager: One foot each in the IT and business domains. International Journal of Project Management, 35, 307-319.
Larman, C. & Basili, V. R., 2003. Iterative and Incremental Development: A Brief History. Computer, 01 06, 36(6), pp. 47-56.
Leong, T. W. & Robertson, T., 2016. Voicing values: laying foundations for ageing people to participate in design. Aarhus, Denmark, s.n., pp. 31-40.
Light, R. J., 1980. Synthesis methods: Some judgement calls that must be made. Evaluation in Education, 4(1), pp. 13-17.
Liker, K. J., 2004. The Toyota Way: 14 management principles from the world's greatest manufacturer. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lindberg, S., Thomsen, M. & Åkesson, M., 2014. Ethics in health promoting PD: designing digital peer support with children cured from cancer. Windhoek, Namibia, s.n., pp. 91-100.
Locander, W. B., Napier, H. A. & Scamell, R. W., 1979. A team approach to managing the development of a decision support system. MIS Quarterly, March, 3(1), pp. 53-63.
Lockheed Martin Corporation, 2017. Kelly's 14 Rules & Practices. [Online] Available at: http://www.lockheedmartin.com.au/us/aeronautics/skunkworks/14rules.html [Accessed 10 4 2017].
Lutz, M. J., 2001. Software engineering on internet time. Computer, 34(5), p. 36.
Maital, S., 1994. A 'Made in America' system.. Across the Board, 31(4), p. 45.
Makhaeva, J., Frauenberger, C. & Spiel, K., 2016. Creating creative spaces for co-designing with autistic children: the concept of a "Handlungsspielraum". Aarhus, Denmark, ACM New York, NY, USA, pp. 51-60.
Maldonado Branco, R., Quental, J. & Ribeiro, Ó., 2016. Playing with personalisation and openness in a codesign project involving people with dementia. Aarhus, Denmark, ACM New York, NY, USA, pp. 61-70.
Mcauley, L., Pham, B., Tugwell, P. & Moher, D., 2000. Does the inclusion of grey literature influence estimates of intervention effectiveness reported in meta-analyses?. The Lancet, 356(9237), pp. 1228-1231.
McDonald, C., 2010. Art form to engineering discipline?: A history of US Military software development standards, 1974–1998. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 32(4), pp. 32-47.
McDonnell Douglas Aerospace, 1995. Report of surcey conducted at McDonnell Douglas Aerospace (MDA) (St. Louis), St. Louis, MO: Center of Excellence for best Manufacturing Practices.
McGarry, P., Sopel, J., Caira, M. & McDonald, B., 1996. Self–Directed Work: A Strategy for Continuous Improvement. Journal of Innovative Management, pp. 61-71.
Mead, L. M. & Gavin, J. G. J., 1970. Proposal to Accomplish Phase B Space Shuttle Program, Bethpage, Long Island, New York ll714: Grumman Aerospace Corp..
Microsoft, 2015. Using stubs to isolate parts of your application from each other for unit testing. [Online] Available at: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh549174.aspx [Accessed 11 4 2017].
Mills, H., Dyer, R. & Linger, R., 1987. Cleanroom Software Engineering. IEEE Software, 4(5), pp. 19-25.
Moczar, L., 2013. Why agile isn‘t working: bringing common sense to agile principles, 2013: CIO.
Moore, J. W. & Rada, R., 1996. Organizational badge collecting. Communications of the ACM, 39(8), pp. 17-21.
Morris, J. M., 1987. A theoretical basis for Stepwise Refinement and the programming calculus. Science of Computer Programming, 9(3), pp. 287-306.
Mulrow, C. D., 1994. Rationale For Systematic Reviews. British Medical Journal, 309(6954), pp. 597-599.
NATO, 2008. RTO Technical Report: Evolutionary Software Development. s.l.:North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
Nelson, A. & Harvey, F. A., 1995. Technologies for Training and Supporting your Agile Work Force, Proceedings of the 4th Agility Forum Annual Conference. Bethlehem, PA, Agility Forum.
Nerur, S., Mahapatra, R. & Mangalaraj, G., 2005. Challenges of migrating to agile methodologies. Communications of the ACM, 48(5), pp. 73-78.
Noblit, G. W. & Hare, R. D., 1988. Meta-ethnography: synthesizing qualitative studies. Newbury Park, Calif;London: SAGE.
Ohno, T., 1988. Toyota production system: beyond large-scale production. Cambridge, Mass.: Productivity Press.
Papaioannou, D. et al., 2010. Literature searching for social science systematic reviews: consideration of a range of search techniques. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 27(2), pp. 114-122.
Pariser, E., 2011. The filter bubble: what the Internet is hiding from you. 18th ed. London: Viking/Penguin Press.
Parolo, P. D. B. et al., 2015. Attention decay in science. Journal of Informetrics, 9(4), pp. 734-745.
Parris, D. L. & Peachey, J. W., 2013. A Systematic Literature Review of Servant Leadership Theory in Organizational Contexts. Journal of Business Ethics, 113(3), pp. 377-393.
Pdworld, 2017. Pdworld -- List of the Participatory Design Community. [Online] Available at: https://listserv.uni-siegen.de/mailman/listinfo/pdworld [Accessed 1 8 2017].
Pentagon, 1987. Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Military Software, Unclassified, s.l.: Pentagon, The.
Perry, W. J., 1994. Specifications & Standards ‐ A New Way of Doing Business, Washington DC: Department of Defense.
Pihkala, S. & Karasti, H., 2016. Reflexive engagement: enacting reflexivity in design and for 'participation in plural'. Aarhus, Denmark, s.n., pp. 21-30.
Pope, C., Mays, N. & Popay, J., 2007. Synthesizing qualitative and quantitative health evidence: a guide to methods. Maidenhead, England ; New York, NY: Open University Press, McGraw Hill Education.
Porter, M. E., 1980. Competitive strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors. New York: Free Press.
Port, O., 1991. This is what the U.S. must do to stay competitive. Business Week, p. 92.
Presley, A., Mills, J. & Liles, D., 1995. Agile Aerospace Manufacturing, Nepcon East: The University of Texas at Arlington.
Presley, A., Sarkis, J., Liles, D. & Barnett, W., 1998. Participative Design Using Soft Systems Methodology. Baltimore, MD, Association for Information Systems (AIS'98).
Project Management Institute, 2013. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). 5th ed. Newtown Square, Pa.: Project Management Institute.
Ramer, S. L., 2005. Site-ation pearl growing: methods and librarianship history and theory. Journal of the Medical Library Association. 93(3), pp. 397-400.
Royce, W. W., 1970. Managing the development of large software systems: concepts and techniques. Monterey, California, USA, Originally published by TRW. Reprinted by IEEE Computer Society Press, pp. 328-338.
Saraph, J. V., Benson, P. G. & Schroeder, R. G., 1989. An Instrument for Measuring the Critical Factors of Quality Management. Decision Sciences, 20(4), p. 810–829.
Schroedera, R. G., Linderman, K., Liedtkeb, C. & Choo, A. S., 2008. Six Sigma: Definition and underlying theory. Journal of Operations Management, 26(4), pp. 536-554.
SCRUM Alliance®, Inc., 2016. SCRUM Alliance. [Online] Available at: https://www.scrumalliance.org/why-scrum#why-its-called-scrum [Accessed 17 April 2017].
Scrum Inc®, 2017. Scrum Inc. [Online] Available at: https://www.scruminc.com/ [Accessed 17 April 2017].
Selby, R. W., Basili, V. R. & Baker, T. F., 1987. Cleanroom Software Development: An Empirical Evaluation. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING, 13(9), pp. 1027-1037.
Sharp, H. et al., 2006. Agile development: opportunity or fad?. Montreal, Canada, 22–27 April Association for Computing Machinery.
Sheridan, J. H., 1993. Agile manufacturing: Stepping beyond lean production. Industry Week, 242(8), p. 30.
Shewhart, W. A., 1939. Statistical method from the viewpoint of quality control. Washington, D.C.: Graduate School of the Department of Agriculture.
Takeuchi, H. & Nonaka, I., 1986. The new new product development game. Harvard Business Review, January-February, 64(1), pp. 137-146.
Temple, L. P. I., 2005. Shades of gray: national security and the evolution of space reconnaissance. Reston(Va.): American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
The Cochrane Collaboration, 2017. About Us. [Online] Available at: http://www.cochrane.org/about-us [Accessed 20 08 2016].
Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers, 2015. 日科技連について. [Online] Available at: http://www.juse.or.jp/aboutus/history/ [Accessed 10 11 2017].
US Department of Defence, 1988. DOD-STD-2167A. Washington DC: US Department of Defence.
VersionOne Inc., 2017. 11th Annual State of Agile Survey, Alpharetta: VersionOne Inc..
Ward, C., 1994. What is agility?. Industrial Engineering, 26(11), p. 14.
Webster, G., 2013. Sun in the Way Will Affect Mars Missions in April. [Online] Available at: https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mars2020/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1449 [Accessed 20 4 2017].
Wirth, N., 1971. Program Development by Stepwise Refinement. Reprinted from Communications of the ACM, 1 April, 14(4), pp. 221-227.
Wirth, N., 2008. A Brief History of Software Engineering. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 30(3), pp. 32-39.
Yeo, K. T., 1993. Systems thinking and project management – time to reunite. International Journal of Project Management, 11(2), pp. 111-117.
Yin, R. K., 1994. Applied social research methods series Case study research: Design and methods. 2nd ed. London: Sage.
Youssef, M. A., 1992. Agile manufacturing: A necessary condition for competing in. Industrial Engineering, 24(12), p. 18.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Andrew Whiteley, Julien Pollack, Petr Matous
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.