[heisenbit]

Can anyone imagine building a house where the window and the door crafts-men would use different materials, techniques and tools in each of the different rooms? Or where they would gather in a scrum and discuss this until they have reached consensus?

In no other profession would anyone embark on a large scale project without proper technical coordination. And this technical coordination is backed up by codes - the kind of codes that are legally enforceable.

Somehow software and the people working in there is different. There is a lot of confusion about the responsibility of the individual and team across the development process as evidenced by the spectrum of team orgs and workflows. I suspect one driver is the large power any developers yields on the outcome with the lack of sufficiently tangible and immediate feedback. This naturally leads to a less than objective self assessment of all players. Another is the desire and often accepted excuse that it is a creative process. There are significant professional incentives for doing something new where other approaches may have been more effective.