if you work in a software shop you’ve undoubtably encountered a development process of one sort or another. currently lightweight methods like the horribly titled, extreme programming, are all the rage. The New Methodology gives a pretty balanced overview of xp and its ilk:
“In the past few years there’s been a rapidly growing interest in agile (aka “lightweight”) methodologies. Alternatively characterized as an antidote to bureaucracy or a license to hack they’ve stirred up interest all over the software landscape. In this essay I explore the reasons for agile methods, focusing not so much on their weight but on their adaptive nature and their people-first orientation. I also give a summary and references to the processes in this school and consider the factors that should influence your choice of whether to go down this newly trodden path.”
while i’m the last one to line up for documentation, i think as usual it’s a matter of not going to one extreme [no pun intended] over another as the good folks in Applying an Architecture-Centric, Iterative Development Process point out.