MartinFowler uses a lovely phrase in his book UmlDistilled: "low-ceremony process".  I have been searching for a phrase that captures the difference between heavyweight bureaucratic processes and methodologies, and lightweight ones, but that is not so insulting.  Low-ceremony, high-ceremony is an image I like.  For a life-critical system, I am willing to consider a high-ceremony method.  

In general, lower ceremony methods are safer than higher ceremony, where (safety = shipping the software).  Although I believe that statement is true, I don't exactly know how to describe why it must be true.  It has something to do with people being GoodAtLookingAround and MethodsReplaceCommunication. 

-- AlistairCockburn

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Alistair to my mind makes a very good case for 'low ceremony' being better in a number of ways than any of the current alternatives. I enthusiastically agree - although making the LowChurch metaphor explicit may not go down so well with either humanists or high churchmen. -- RichardDrake

I don't know when I posted that top paragraph, probably late '97, but I have since made progress and written the MethodologySpace article (mid '98), which gets closer to why low ceremony methods are safer than high ceremony methods, and now recommend them more forcefully.  --AlistairCockburn