I’ve got to say I have an interesting concern - but a sense of delight at the possibilities - about the speed and capacity of change of Enterprise 2.0. Let me explain…

In the world of application development, there is a serious and mounting argument from the rapid development / iterative prototyping camp versus the waterfall (requirements, design, build, test, deploy, support) purists. When it comes to applications that affect corporations - that is, across the enterprise - I am a firm believer in the latter.

Iterative development is great when there are only a few people involved - or a small point solution that only affects a few people. When you start getting more people involved, the challenges go up.

The challenges include:

• People - commitment to using a new process and a new underpinning system - and a common way of doing so
• Process - is the process we are using common to all? Do we all do our own thing?)
• Technology - solid analysis of the problems and a clear view of how to resolve them with technology

Now with Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0, the beauty is that these applications are breaking new ground in making the process neatly tied up in the applications and making it really simple for people to follow the process without having to think too much about it - or having to refer to training manuals or help guides. However, the ease of picking one up, configuring them differently according to different needs - but at the same time missing the opportunity to apply them consistently is the challenge.

The takeaway points to consider:

• If you are going to go for a Web 2.0 application, do document your processes and make sure people apply it consistently within the organisation
• Software developers can learn from the myriad of Web 2.0 projects smart ways of developing inviting interfaces and very simple and fast sign up and use approaches
• The next raft of successful enterprise scale applications from the Web 2.0 environment will make a dent on traditional software only when sold, implemented and supported like enterprise software

All comments welcome!