Design Methodologies - where do you want to spend your money?

I recently revisited articles on design methodologies, specifically TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework) and Agile methodologies. Initially, I thought that both approaches contradict each other and so could not be used together. However, like writing software you combine best practices from different methodologies that meet your project requirements, improving the chances of a successful project.

I'm not going to try and pretend to be a TOGAF professional, I have an awareness of the framework and have never used it end to end. I believe that if you are going to design software then you should at least be aware of frameworks such as TOGAF and alternatives. A good start on agile is Martin Fowler "The New Methodology" and "Can SOA be done with an agile approach".

TOGAF combined with Zachman framework is a top down design methodology and provides an excellent mechanism for eliciting requirements and providing a framework for communication in a common language, but as Fowler states big up front design can become very expensive. Also, it can lead a project to not deliver what is required by the business when the system goes live, rather it delivers what was required initially. The difference may well be dramatic.

A good reason for top down design is to do with procurement and the need to identify appropriate commercial products to use, a focus of TOGAF. Large organisations want to outsource at fixed price and the vendor organisation doing the work wants all the details up front to have the best chance of delivering the project at a profit. Again, Fowler makes a good point about the "Adaptive Customer" and how customers need to be adaptive in the way they engage with vendors. Although from my experience of being both the vendor and using vendors to do work there is never an ideal approach. A vendor wants to make as much money as possible while the customer wants to control the scope and spend as little as possible.

So where do you want to spend your money?

Up front with lots of design, then on lots of change requests and the end result will be lots of documentation that in theory should reduce the maintenance overheads, keeping the future costs down.

The alternative is relying upon highly skilled and talented  software engineers who may or may not use a silver bullet, document the code or write any design material thus making maintenance harder for someone un-familiar with the code.

I have seen both top down and bottom up methodologies succeed and fail to varying degrees. It is my opinion that success is based upon good judgement and adaptability at the beginning and during the project on the part of everyone involved.

Combining the requirement analysis and control features of TOGAF with an Agile methodology, and the use of PRINCE project management looks like a good combination as long as you are adaptable in selecting the parts that make most sense for the project you are working on.