"The Agile Methods Fray" (2002), co-authored with Barry Boehm in IEEE Computer, addresses the emerging Agile movement and the tension between agile and plan-driven approaches to software development. The article is notable for pairing DeMarco — whose peopleware-thesis had strongly influenced the Agile manifesto's humanistic values — with Boehm, the preeminent figure in plan-driven software engineering.
The essay reflects DeMarco's complicated relationship with the Agile movement: his ideas about team-jell, flow-and-interruption-cost, and the primacy of human factors were foundational to Agile thinking, yet DeMarco's own background in structured methods placed him at the intersection of the disciplined and agile traditions.