Emergent design

Emergent design is one of the more advanced aspects of agile engineering practices, and therefore an area of active research & development. Such architectures should be driven by the underlying technical requirements of the system, rather than speculative planning for a future that may change. We have identified at least two facets of emergent design: the Lean software principle of last responsible moment, which mostly applies to greenfield projects, and finding & harvesting idiomatic patterns, which is more applicable to existing projects.

As Agile practices move further toward mainstream adoption, we see significant benefits from the adoption of Lean software development practices as well. These practices have their roots in the Toyota Production System and complement much of our understanding of Agile software development to date. One topic that Lean has also given us greater insight into is that of set-based design. Set-based design leads us to implement similar solutions at the same time while the cost of doing so is constrained. This leads us into the area of emergent design and the ability to let experience shape our design decisions and defer key decisions until the last responsible moment.