Web 2.0 Lessons For Corporate Dev Teams

jcatcw writes "Quick, incremental updates, along with heavy user involvement, are key characteristics of the emerging software development methods championed by a new generation of Web 2.0 start-ups. A survey conducted for Computerworld showed that an overwhelming majority of the respondents said that traditional corporate development teams could benefit from Web 2.0 techniques, specifically the incremental feature releases, quick user feedback loops and quality assurance programs that include users. Fifty seven percent of the respondents said problem-solving and analytical skills will be key requirements for next generation developers. The bottom-line: corporate development teams need to get to know their users."

Comments

This has nothing to do with Web 2.0

[chatgris]

And is instead similar to the Agile software development process. If the average Web 2.0 monkey had some real software engineering background, maybe their work will be maintainable a few years down the road, and not just rewritten for the Next Big Buzzword.

Prior art

[heffrey]

This is called "agile development" and pre-dates Web 2.0 by around 10 years. Taco's having a bad day it seems.

Just like I was tell my boss last night

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to deliver world-class e-tailers, aggregate bleeding-edge channels while growing our virtual bandwidth and benchmarking one-to-one deliverables. That is not to say that we redefine dot-com experiences and maximize B2C web services all the while revolutionizing end-to-end mindshare and monetize front-end deliverables.

WTF?

[topham]

"Fifty seven percent of the respondents said that problem-solving and analytical skills will be key requirements for next generation developers"

Really? To do development you need problem-solving and analytical skills? Since when?

CmdrTaco, what the f are you doing? I'm seriously thinking you've slipped a gear.

Re:WTF?

[D Ninja]

Kind of makes me wonder what the other 43 percent of respondents thought would be good requirements for future developers...

I would wait for Web 2.1

[mrroot]

.0 releases always have alot of bugs.

Re:Noise to Signal Ratio

[pavera]

I really don't think the article is saying "we should do intranets like web 2.0 websites! and have all user generated content!"

They are simply saying, Instead of say having an internal software dev project, and having a huge design timeframe, huge development time frame, and then 3 months for test/fix/ship, the project should be built incrementally, using the same techniques as a lot of web 2.0 startups use...

release early, release often, work with the users, incorporating their feedback quickly into the project. Instead of doing 1-2 years of design, 1 year of dev, then releasing a beta that no one can use, solves no ones problems, and in general was a complete waste.

Instead, start prototyping early, releasing things to users or a group of users, and building the software iteratively with them instead of saying "this is what we built, learn how to use it" say "help us build this so it solves your problems in the best way possible"

Re:Not feasible in some markets

[dubl-u]

For instance, my company develops health care diagnostic solutions, some of which are heavily regulated. While many of our tools and products could highly benefit from this design approach, federal regulations simply make it an impossibility.

You'd be surprised. There are a number of medical device people who are active in the Agile world. Yes, you can't push new code to somebody's pacemaker every morning, so there are some limits. But they are definitely applying Agile lessons even in heavily regulated spaces, so it's worth checking them out.