Waterfall / Agile / Where are the Practical Tools?

In the continuing dialogue of design iteration - why is it that in software do we talk about the methodology without the tools to implement them? Yes people and organizations need structure and controls around what is built. But methoolody controls are not tools which enable creativity or efficiency.

The next logical step is the desire to conform to a design iteration process methodology and over lay it on the team to produce faster iterations. A design iteration process methodology such as, "Agile" or CMMi or ITIL or UML/BPMN methodologies are essentially the same. Process driven, data capture rules with a limited number of shapes or project steps that add "structure".

What are the weaknesses in these methodologies? They are highly subjective to project steps with command and control requirements that have little getting the creative work done. Business analysts and IT architects share a need, even more so a desire to do well, to do the right thing. It is in their interests to work together for the common good, yet we put artificial barriers between them, such as different design tools, communication jargon, project deliverables which mandate primarily individual effort or steps and not team efforts. These methodologies provide very little tools to improve team effort in process or use case design.

We at Zynium have taken the best of the BPM structure for process design and placed it within an inexpensive yet widely used and understood application. To date the largest "problem" with Visio has been the "lack" of structure. Well it now no longer lacks structure, and on top of that it can integrate to reduce the cycle time for implementation of BPM / SOA or other software solutions. All while producing methodolgies in the document de jeur above.