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There is shockingly little data on this available. The most systematic research I have found was led by Lehman at Imperial in the 90's : http://www.eis.mdx.ac.uk/staffpages/mml/feast2/papers/abstra...

Interestingly I am in a position to revisit the evolution of one of the systems in the FEAST study. The key insight from FEAST was the idea of an "S-curve" where complexity overwhelms drive for features. Initial development progress is slow because the infrastructure and framework for the system is not in place, then comes rapid development then a slow down as complexity kicks in.

The reviewed system behaved like that in the study (I checked the data) and for a few years after. But then a period of explosive growth occurred, halted only by a strategic decision to move away from the platform for technology management (obsolescence of mainframes) reasons.



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