[mudetroit]

This works fine if you are tackling a problem that can be sufficiently addressed by 4 developers. Depending on the size and scale of the problem you are trying to suggest and the time line required for delivery you may need a larger team.

When you begin to take that into account you realize you have to find ways for the larger team to work together and still produce a quality product. Hence the techniques being used by the author and other companies out there trying to address similar problems.

[lgriffith]

"...you have to find ways for the larger team to work together and still produce a quality product. "

I am not sure its possible. The communication overhead of so many linkages forces incoherence. The resultant incoherence forces still more additions to process and body count. That adds still more communication overhead. The result is still more incoherence - not less. If something is "finished", its simply because time, money, resources, and toleration ran out. The end result was simply called "done".

Maybe that is the best we can do but I am hard pressed to call products produced that way quality products. See Vista et.al. for instructive detail.