Ken Schwaber, Jim Highsmith and other experts have explained in their books that a lot of agile concepts have been copied from the study of complex systems. However, agile software development has not covered all there is to learn. I will show why practices must be agile (self-organized) *and* formal (controlled), why any software development method is doomed to fail, why managing scope is a too simplistic interpretation of the principle of “embracing change”, why most process improvement initiatives are linear and wrong, and why some sets of practices will be show chaotic behaviour when combined. I will go a step further than what has already been described in mainstream literature, linking some of complexity theory with down-to-earth experience from the trenches in my role as chief information officer for a software development company.
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