Lightweight methodology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A lightweight methodology is a software development methodology which has only a few rules and practices or ones which are easy to follow. In contrast, a complex methodology with many rules is considered a heavyweight methodology.
Some examples of lightweight methodologies are:
- Extreme Programming (XP) promoted by people such as Kent Beck and Martin Fowler;
- Adaptive Software Development by James A. Highsmith III (Jim Highsmith), described in his Jolt award-winning book Adaptive Software Development (Dorset House Publishing, 1999, pp. 392, ISBN 0-932633-40-4);
- The Crystal family of methodologies (Crystal Clear) with Alistair Cockburn; and
- Feature Driven Development (FDD) developed (1999) by Jeff De Luca and Peter Coad.
- ICONIX Process, developed by Doug Rosenberg, is a UML Use Case driven approach to providing just enough documentation and structure to the process to allow flexibility, yet produce software which meets user and business requirements.
Most of these lightweight processes emphasize the need to deal with change in requirements and change in environment (or technology) by being flexible and adaptive.
