“What we see in both software development and military operations is a tendency for the pendulum to swing back and forth between extremes. Yet in most cases, we need a balance between armor and discipline and between mobility and agility. Actually, though, I would say that the leaders in both the agile and plan-driven camps occupy various places in the responsible middle. It’s only the over-enthusiastic followers who overinterpret “discipline” and “agility” to unhealthy degrees.”

—  Barry Boehm

Tom DeMarco and Barry Boehm. " The agile methods fray http://cf.agilealliance.org/articles/system/article/file/872/file.pdf." Computer 35.6 (2002): 90-92.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What we see in both software development and military operations is a tendency for the pendulum to swing back and forth…" by Barry Boehm?
Barry Boehm photo
Barry Boehm 18
American software engineer 1935

Related quotes

Barry Boehm photo

“Agile development methodologies promise higher customer satisfaction, lower defect rates, faster development times and a solution to rapidly changing requirements. Plan-driven approaches promise predictability, stability, and high assurance. However, both approaches have shortcomings that, if left unaddressed, can lead to project failure. The challenge is to balance the two approaches to take advantage of their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses.”

Barry Boehm (1935) American software engineer

Barry Boehm and Richard Turner. " Observations on balancing discipline and agility http://people.cs.aau.dk/~jeremy/SOE2011/resources/Boehm.pdf." Agile Development Conference, 2003. ADC 2003. Proceedings of the. IEEE, 2003.

Brandon Mull photo

“The pendulum swings between Light and Darkness”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer
David Levithan photo

“I had always felt that mittens were a few steps back on the evolutionary scale-- why, I wondered, would we want to make ourselves into a less agile version of lobster.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Frans de Waal photo

“Our societies are constructed around the interface between those two, so we need both actually.”

Frans de Waal (1948) Dutch primatologist and ethologist

The Bonobo in All of Us (2007)
Context: I would say there are people in this world who like hierarchies, they like to keep people in their place, they like law enforcement, and they probably have a lot in common, let's say, with the chimpanzee. And then you have other people in this world who root for the underdog, they give to the poor, they feel the need to be good, and they maybe have more of this kinder bonobo side to them. Our societies are constructed around the interface between those two, so we need both actually.

“Extreme Programming is the most prominent new, light-weight (or agile) methods, defined to contrast the current heavy-weight and partially overloaded object-oriented methods. It focuses on the core issues of software technology. One of its principles is not to rely on diagrams to document a system.”

Bernhard Rumpe (1967) German computer scientist

Source: Executable Modeling with UML. A vision or a Nightmare (2002), p. 697

“I was astonished to be invited to what became the meeting that originated the Agile Manifesto because my work had always been based around building models… The other signatories were kind enough, back in 2001, to write the manifesto using the word “software” (which can include executable models), not “code” (which is more specific.) As such I felt able, in good conscience, to become a signatory to the Manifesto while continuing to promote executable modeling. Ten years on we have a standard action language for agile modeling.”

Stephen J. Mellor (1952) British computer scientist

Mellor (2011) " A Personal Reflection on Agile Ten Years On http://www.infoq.com/articles/personal-reflection-agile-ten-years-mellor" in: InfoQ, Feb 11, 2011.

Chang Guan-chung photo

“We intend to make use of the natural buffer zone of the Taiwan Strait and our geostrategic advantages (in the case of conflicts with Mainland China). We adopt innovative and asymmetric concepts to focus our investment on systems that are mobile, hard to find, agile, cheap, numerous, survivable and operationally effective.”

Chang Guan-chung (1959) Taiwanese military personel

Chang Guan-chung (2019) cited in " Taiwan seeking long-term U.S. logistic support: defense official http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201910080004.aspx" on Focus Taiwan, 8 October 2019

Harry Emerson Fosdick photo

“One of the widest gaps in human experience is the gap between what we say we want to be and our willingness to discipline ourselves to get there.”

Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969) American pastor

Also quoted in The Heart of Goodness : A Radiant Path to a Richer, Fuller Life (1999) by Jo Ann Larsen
Living Under Tension (1941)
Context: No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined. One of the widest gaps in human experience is the gap between what we say we want to be and our willingness to discipline ourselves to get there.

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo

“Only few people, the leaders, have graduated from the school of religion. The others continue to swing back and forth like a pendulum. The lost sheep.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Related topics