A model for the evolution of software and systems engineering project cultures throughout their life cycles

Abstract

Software development projects are renown for exhibiting chaotic outcomes despite the application of recent development process paradigms. This paper argues that the development culture followed by a software project greatly contributes at a deeper level to its ultimate outcome. Five such cultures are discussed: the calendar driven culture, the requirements driven culture, the documentation driven culture, the quality driven culture, and the architecture driven culture. Each culture is characterized by the priority of objectives that it selects and the artifacts that it predominantly generates. Cultural shifts throughout a project life cycle are also often identified as unconscious responses to pressure exercised by the project stakeholders. This article presents a conceptual model that captures the cultural profile of a software project and estimates the cost and/or difficulty of shifting from one culture to another. Changing cultures can have severe consequences on a project success. An improved knowledge of the nature and objectives of each culture combined with a keen awareness of the impact of shifting cultures can mitigate chaotic outcomes by enabling better decision-making throughout a software project life cycle. The paper also attempts to establish the extent to which the results are also relevant to the Systems Engineering discipline. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng 8: 151–163, 2005