There was no shortage of vendors out there willing to tout their processes and associated tools. After many presentations, we didn’t feel any the wiser. Nothing seemed to address our needs. The reasons varied but the underlying problem was that none of the methodologies took into consideration the way things worked in web development. In comparison to traditional software development time frames are often shorter, the experience levels of employees vary dramatically, clients often have a poor understanding of what’s possible, the technology changes rapidly and it’s all via a single user interface (the browser). That’s not to say these elements don’t exist in traditional software development, however they are much more pronounced in web development.

Another issue with traditional methodologies is they they failed to take into consideration the “soft” aspects of software development. A recent study (Cutter Journal March 2005 – will get reference) of the most important factors in successful software teams ranked trust as the number one factor and technical expertise as last out of 17 factors. No where in any of the presentations or literature for both RUP or Process Mentor was trust mentioned, or any of the other soft skills that have a huge impact on success.

So, the short answer was we couldn’t either adopt or adapt a traditional approach leaving us with the unenviable task of trying to create our own.