[eengstrom]

I've worked on an awful lot of teams and projects over the years. This discussion and the avoidance or embracing of the process flavor of the month, is not new. Agile has been around since people stopped drinking the RUP cool aid and came up with XP (a process that keeps meetings short by standing on your feet!). RUP lost its own gravity when Rational then IBM acquired the IP and turned it into another legendary white whale, from the origins of humble Objectory.

The one great thing I learned from RUP, a cocktail napkin makes a great realization document. Especially when originally served under a cool drink.

Communication and being clear on what the tree-swing looks like and needs to do is all that matters. Your companies will develop culture as they grow based on their pain points and their experiences.

I take the approach of "automate, automate, automate". I also enforce regular activities in intervals of by day of the week. I insist on profiling. I insist on peer code review; which can be done in the IDE or with a cocktail napkin, but I like my developers to be able to communicate what they've just written in case they get hit by a bus.

As a leader, not just the coder, you DO have to be concerned that you're writing something that can hold a the weight of a business on top of it. Would I worry about TDD or BDD before my Series A? No. But I would go back and reiterate and reinforce everything written prior, shortly after.