Iterative Rose Solutions, LLC, was founded in May, 2005, by Jim Holmes. Jim's experience in the Information Technology domain runs the gamut from telephone hotline support to network management to software development in Java, C++, and Perl. Jim also has a solid background in requirements and testing. Along his career, Jim came to believe strongly in the odd notion that solution providers ought to listen to the customer, rather than lecturing customers on how the providers can best spend the customers' money. Jim's resume is available online here.

Experience via the school of hard knocks convinced Jim that development based on the waterfall method was a lousy way to meet customer needs. Burning up customer funds while creating huge packages of requirements documentation isn't a good use of anyone's time. Worse, cumbersome and inflexible approaches to software aren't realistic simply because too many things change in a project's lifecyle. Business needs change. Understanding of the problem grows. New technology emerges. Deal with it or move aside. As General Eric Shinseki said, "If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less."

Agile and iterative methodologies attracted Jim because of their close involvement with the customer's needs, coupled with the ability to react quickly during the project's cycle.

Jim moved into the .NET arena after the Software Development West expo in 2004 where he attended presentations by industry leaders like Josh Holmes, Michele Leroux Bustamante, and Steve McConnell.

Why Iterative Rose? Jim realized some similarities exist between software development and rose gardening. A rose gardener starts out with a vague picture of what the rose should look like when it's first planted. The rose gets trimmed and adjusted as it grows, adapting its structure to changing conditions. A gardener has to pay attention to any feedback the rose gives, plus one can see most bugs aren't beneficial to either roses or software

The metaphor breaks down if one carries it too far. Roses like to get sprayed with seaweed extract and fed lots of manure. Most customers don't particularly care for such treatment.