7.4 Conclusions

In this chapter, a lightweight component-oriented development process suitable for most organizations and projects was introduced. Given that an ideal team size is four developers working for three months, this sort of process compares favorably with heavyweight approaches introduced elsewhere in this book, such as RM-ODP and the Zachman Framework.

It is important to note that good software architects are very pragmatic. The goal of this book is to produce a working software system that satisfies stakeholder needs. Its goal is not to create piles of papers or mind-numbingly extensive requirements specifications. What's necessary and prudent to achieve the result is recommended, and unnecessary make-work is avoided whenever possible.

Lightweight approaches are favored over heavyweight ones, even though each approach is evaluated in terms of its strengths and weaknesses. Because system needs can be fulfilled, regardless of methodology, unnecessary steps are skipped, irrelevant viewpoints are bypassed, and viewpoints and techniques that are appropriate are added, even if they go beyond the scope of a particular framework.