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An information radiator for the Agile AllianceSpring 2006
3 Ways to Takethe XP PlungeDive in.
The waters fne!page 16
Plus...
Deliver true iteration quality
page 12
Create an agile organization
page 21
Dont demand pair programming
page 30
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EditorRebecca Traeger
ProofreaderHeidi Amundson
DesignPixallure Design
Account ExecutiveAlison Kincaid
Technical AdvisorMIke Cohn
Departments
5 Face-to-FaceYoull want to mark your calendar
for these Agile events.
6 User Stories6 Cooking Up Some Agile Planning
by Laura M. Waite & Paul K. Goddard
9 Agile Gets Leanby Roman Pichler
26Through the Looking Glassby Lori Schubring
29 ContextEvery Agile project needs a solidbackground. Find out what MicheleSliger is reading to strengthen herAgile foundation.
30 RefactorIn this issue, Alex Pukinskis reects onthe wasted effort of selling reluctantmanagers and developers on thevirtues of pair programming.
Features
12 Checks and BalancesBring the power of QA to your Agile
processes to ensure that your itera-tive releases are production ready.by Damon Carr
16 Take the XP plunge!When youre ready to test the XPwaters, pick a style that suits you andventure in at your own pace. by KentBeck and Cynthia Andres
21 Informed ConsentUse the decision-making principles ofsociocracy to create an organizationthat is as agile as its software develop-ment practices. by Gareth Powell
AnAgileAlliancepubl
ication
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REGISTER NOW!
www.sqe.com/bettersoftwareconf
www.sqe.com
Discover the latest in software development
technologies, trends, and practices
Attend pre-conference tutorials covering
Agile development, Scrum, traditional
development, requirements, metrics,
estimating, and project management
Network with experts, tools and service
providers, and peers
K E Y N O T E S B Y I N T E R N A T I O N A L E X P E R T S
Norm KerthElite Systems
Michael MahQSM Associates
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Learn How toBeat the Oddson Your Next
SoftwareDevelopmentProject
JUNE 2629, 2006 LAS VEGAS , NEVADA SOUTH COAST HOTEL & CASINO
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AgileDevelopment | Spring 2006
Editors Letter
Im so glad you downloaded the rst issue ofAgileDevelopment magazine. I hope you are as excited as we
are about the changes and the possibilities for the future.As you can see, the magazine is designed to be a virtual
whiteboard for the Agile Alliance. In its pages you will nd in-formation that is all relevant to the overall project we call Agiledevelopment. From features on delivering working software toarticles that show how individuals and interactions really arevalued above process and procedures, the concepts that werelaid down ve years ago in the now famous Agile Manifesto arebrought to life here.
Dont miss our regular sections: Face-to-Face (events
where you can meet with peers and experts), Context (reviewsof books and articles that discuss Agile topics), User Stories(tales from the Agile trenches), and Refactor (an Agile methodor process as seen from the perspective of hindsight).
If youd like to comment or contribute, please feel free toemail me at [email protected]. Id love to hear from you.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Traeger, Editor
The completesolution forLean Agile
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6 AgileDevelopment | Spring 2006
Through the Looking GlassOur long days journey into Agile
by Lori Schubring, ADS Manager, Bemis Manufacturing
User Stories
They say a journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step. Our path to Agile
started back in early 2005 when I received
an invitation to a free half-day seminar on
Scrum. Intrigued, I attended. After the semi-
nar, my interest was peaked and the ball
was ofcially in motion.
My next step was to enroll in the
Certied ScrumMaster Trainingcourse pre-
sented by Ken Schwaber and Esther Derby
in Milwaukee. I invited two of my team
members along so they, too, could learn
what Scrum was all about. The course gave
me a valuable head start, but I still wanted
more information before I made a commit-
ment to change.
To further my Agile education, I read
Kens book,Agile Project Management with
Scrum. As I read, I found myself scrutinizing
the way we currently were approachingsoftware development. I wondered if it was
possible to make Agile work for our organi-
zation.
Who We Are
As the Application Development and
Support Manager for a large manufacturing
company, I am responsible for coordinat-
ing and managing the efforts of both oursupport team (help desk) and our project
development group. We support, maintain,
and enhance some 3300, mostly internal,
applications.
We use the traditional waterfall ap-
proach to our software development life-
cycle, with the requisite multiple hand-offs
and business and technical specications
that are often in the hundreds of pages. An
average project lasts anywhere from threemonths to three years. We currently pro-
gram in RPG IV. All of our testing is manual.
(Hey, at least we test.) All this is to say that
we are about as far away from Agile as one
can beall the more reason why Scrum
could be such an important change for us
to make.
Where Weve Been
About a year ago, we began to ques-
tion the value in our process. We encour-
aged our IS Applications Group to do the
same. Several years ago, we had very little
control or processthings were just short
of a free-for-all when it came to making
program changes and getting them into
production. In response, we went to the
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AgileDevelopment | Spring 2006
other end of the spectrum and became
so formalized that we hindered our abil-
ity to remain exible for the business. It
got to the point where we werent turn-
ing around project requests fast enough:
our process took so long people some-
times thought the project had died when
in fact we were still working on it!
After our brief exposure to the
world of Agile, we began to look for ways
to be more exible rather than letting
the process govern how we approached
our projects. If it didnt make sense to do
something for a particular project, we
encouraged the group to question it andthink outside the box. If we didnt need
a technical specication, we didnt write
one. If we could combine the specica-
tions into one document to minimize
the documentation, we did just that. We
started assigning the project team at
the beginning of a project to minimize
hand-offs and the learning curve that
goes along with them. We have begun tomove from narrative test plans to reus-
able test plans and would love to get to
the point where we can automate our
testing.
We have been taking some very
small steps, and have made some great
strides in improving our process with the
goal of delivering value to the business
Mike helped usmove to a muchmore progressive,business-friendly
approach that haspaid enormousdividends. I cantimagine goingback to the oldway of developingsoftware.
Mark Gutrich
CEO, ePlanServices
Mikes classes atYahoo! have beenincredibly useful.I recommend himto anyone whois serious about
implementingAgile in theirorganization.
Gabrielle
Beneeld
Director of Agile
Development,
Yahoo!
training. mentoring. consulting.
Mike Cohn, author ofAgile
Estimating and Planning and
User Stories Applied For Agile
Software DevelopmentandMountain Goat Software
specialize in the application
of agile techniques to dicult
software problems.
Phone: (720) 890-6110
Fax: (720) 221-0721
www.mountaingoatsoftware.com
Agile Estimating and Planning
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User Stories for Agile Requirements
Working On an Agile Team
Agile Product Management
Available courses include:
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AgileDevelopment | Spring 2006
fasterbut we still arent anywhere near
Agile.
Guides along the Way
In July 2005, several of us attended
Agile 2005 in Denver. It was a week of in-tense idea sharing and instruction that had
more energy and passion than any other
conference I have ever been to in all my
fourteen years in the industry.
We all have helpmates on our jour-
ney, and fate stepped in to give us one: in
one session, I happened to select a seat
next to Lisa Owens from ePlan Services. We
began to talk and, as luck would have it,she was already doing Scrum and her of-
ce was a block away from the conference.
She took us on a eld trip to better explain
their Scrum process and to show us their
Scrum board, burndown charts, retrospec-
tives, user stories, and other Agile tools. It
was a great opportunity to see Scrum in
action. She also spoke very highly of Mike
Cohn and suggested that if I was serious
about Agile I should nd a way to bring
him into our organization to help with the
implementation.
Lisa wasnt the only helpful partici-
pant; many people were willing to share
their experiences. I left the conference with
an armful of books and more excitement
about the potential Agile offered than I
had before. Unfortunately, despite all the
information I had received, I also left with
even more questions.
On the ight home, I began to real-
ize the challenges that lay ahead. I needed
to gain the support of our IT Director and
our Vice-President of Information Services.
I wanted to bring Mike Cohn in. I wanted to
change our structure and form Agile teams.
I needed to educate the business on what
the benets of Agile were. I would have to
convince my group that Agile was going to
be a positive change and I would have to
provide them with books and information
on what Agile and Scrum were all about.
I broke out in a sweat thinking about all
of the different things that needed to be
done.
Since then, for every one question I
have asked and had answered, ve more
questions have popped up. Luckily, every-
one I have been in contact with has been
very generous in offering suggestions
and guidance on books, articles, websites,
groups, and contacts to talk to and share
information with.
Mike Cohn has been instrumental in
getting me in touch with individuals who
have already gone down the path I am on.
He suggested I join several Yahoo groups
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AgileDevelopment | Spring 2006
on Agile planning and Scrum development,
so I did that and began posting my ques-
tions to the groups. I purchased several
copies of Mike Cohns User Stories Applied
andAgile Estimating and Planning to share
with my group. I am attempting to orga-
nize a Wisconsin-based Agile user group
(another new adventure for me). I even
created an Agile Corner complete with
whitepapers, diagrams, and other books
on Agile, lean software development, and
teambuilding. We add to the corner as we
come across new material.
I have received emails from different
individuals suggesting alternate reading,including Fit for Developing Software by Rick
Mugridge and Ward Cunningham, I have
also received information on the Wisconsin
SPIN Group, a group dedicated to software
process improvements who recently com-
pleted a four-part series on Agile. I have
spent countless hours reading books and
visiting websites trying to absorb as much
information as possible. I have had confer-
ence calls with complete strangers willing
to share their experiences. Its been great.
Thanks to all of the resources and the
helpful people we encountered along the
way, we have persevered and change is
happening.
Where Were Going
In October, I received approval to
implement Scrum. In early 2006, Mike Cohn
came to us and delivered four full days of
training and consulting. Were on the road.
I had no idea what I was getting into
when this all started. Some days, the pic-
ture is still as clear as mudwell, maybe a
little more watered down. Still, I am making
progress. Members of my group are start-
ing to get excited about what Agile has to
offer as well.
Some might criticize our slow imple-
mentation, but I purposely chose not to
rush into anything. Instead, I planned care-
fully and considered our team structure
and skill sets, ofce layout, company cul-
ture, and potential issues that might arise.I am learning from others experiences and
am trying to take it all in. The good thing
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10 AgileDevelopment | Spring 2006
(or bad thing depending on how you look
at it) is that there is no cookie-cutter solu-
tion. There is no silver bullet. Each of us has
to determine what works best for us and
our particular environment and situation.
It is important to listen to what others have
to say, yet it is equally important to realize
that what might work well in one company
may not work for us.
It is quite challenging trying to lead at
the same time that you are learning. Agile
is a whole new way of looking at thingsit
is both scary and exciting at the same time.
I have learned and pushed myself outside
of my comfort zone many times during thisdiscovery process and I am hoping that my
group will also do the same.
In a future article, I will report back to
you on how well our implementation is go-
ing. In the meantime, I hope our story will
help those of you who are interested but
unsure of how to approach Agile in your
organizations. If we can do it, anyone can. I
am truly convinced of that. Believe meweare about as far away from Agile as the
North Pole is from the South Pole. You may
have to stretch yourself and think outside
the box but there are plenty of people and
resources available to help you along the
way. You will never meet a greater group of
people than those who are involved in the
Agile movement. Good luck to you.
Hyatt Regency Minneapolis
July 23-28, 2006
The Agile2006 Conference is an open forum exploring all agile methodologies,
including Extreme Programming (XP), Scrum, Crystal, FDD, DSDM and others.
With sessions for all roles including executives, managers, programmers and
testers, the conference is the place to go for balanced and up-to-the-minute
information.
Attend Agile2006 and learn how to deliver business value effectively by
adopting Agile Development principles.
REGISTER NOW! In cooperation Brought to you by:
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Agile2005 was a sellout. Dontmiss your opportunity toattend Agile2006.
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Take the XP Plunge!Want to go eXtreme but cant decide where to
start? Stop worrying and start changing.
XPpromises relief from the pitfalls
of traditional development projects. But,when youre ready to test the XP waters,
how do you begin moving from how you
work today toward an XP style of develop-
ment? You want to start in the right place,
convince the right people, and do it right
so you can reap all the benets. However,
this need to do it right can keep many
teams from doing anything at all. XP is a
way forward; a way to nd the courage
to embrace the challenges of change. XP
starts when you start and where you start.
Eight years of observing and coach-
ing the application of XP has convinced me
that there are as many ways of starting and
sustaining change as there are ways to get
into a swimming pool. Lets stick with that
analogy, as introduced in Extreme Program-
ming Explained: Embrace Change, 2nd Edition,
to describe three stereotypical ways teamstake the XP plunge: Toe Dip, Cannonball,
and Racing Dive.
Toe Dip
Some people and teams value con-
tinuity. They dont want to let go with one
hand before they have a rm hold with the
other. When they begin XP they introduce
one practice at a time. They rmly instill
that one practice before adding the next,
while the rest of their development process
remains intact. They are toe dippers.
The gradual path into XP has many
entrances. Some toe dippers make a point
of programming together in a conference
room several hours a day. Others have
developers write some automated tests as
they code. Some start by simply dividing a
big risky release into two smaller releases.
Still other toe dippers begin by working onXP individually if the team is not ready.
The sidebar XPs Safe Starts (page
18) lists thirteen practices that are safe
places to start (covered in detail in XP
Explained, 2nd Edition). Any one of these
places will provide some immediate im-
provement, with minimum risk.
If you are a toe dipper, think about
the area you would most like to improve,nd the practice that addresses that issue,
and implement it on a trial basis. After a
month or two, evaluate the effects of this
change, barriers you met, and successes
you had, and share your experiences with
your support community. Then, rene or
repeat the process to add the next most
valuable practice.
ByKent Beck &Cynthia Andres
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321278658/sr=8-1/qid=1143502472/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8679885-0811065?%5Fencoding=UTF8http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321278658/sr=8-1/qid=1143502472/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8679885-0811065?%5Fencoding=UTF8http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321278658/sr=8-1/qid=1143502472/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8679885-0811065?%5Fencoding=UTF8http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321278658/sr=8-1/qid=1143502472/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8679885-0811065?%5Fencoding=UTF8http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321278658/sr=8-1/qid=1143502472/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8679885-0811065?%5Fencoding=UTF8http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321278658/sr=8-1/qid=1143502472/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8679885-0811065?%5Fencoding=UTF88/9/2019 Spring 2006 Sample
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12 AgileDevelopment | Spring 2006
Cannonball
Some teams want quick results and
are willing to deal with the chaos of radi-
cal change as long as they are in control
of the changes to their software process.These are the teams that start doing every
XP practice they can at full throttle. The
result is, predictably for the short term,
chaos; but it can be constructive chaos.
Everyone is learning new techniques
every day and those techniques interact
in unpredictable ways. Some days work
smoothly. Others days are akin to driving
in bumper-to-bumper trafc. After a sharplearning curve, things settle into a much
more highly interactive and rened team
that is able to leap small buildings in a
single bound. They produce more, make
fewer mistakes, and have condence in
their ability to handle challenges.
The cannonball is attractive when
you want a fresh start and there wont be
any catastrophic effects from the ensu-ing chaos. If you are beginning a release
thats scheduled to take nine months, for
instance, a cannonball might be a good
choice. Conversely, it is not a good choice
if you have just two weeks left before
deployment.
Amplied positive interactions
between practices, quick turnaround, and
the condence boost the team gets from
gaining control on their own are all good
reasons to try a cannonball. Some of the
chaos of the cannonball is mitigated by
the synergies between the practices. For
instance, the practice of developer-written
tests is invaluable
when incrementally
improving the de-
sign of the system.
One of the
challenges of man-
aging the cannon-
ball is that groups
outside the teamquickly feel the
ripples (or in some
cases, waves) from
the teams changes.
All of a sudden,
the team will ask
for communication
sooner and more
directly than theyused to. They will
likely break exist-
ing power chains,
skipping across the
organizational chart
to nd the informa-
tion they need to
succeed. Whether
a cannonball results in lasting improve-
ment depends not only on how the team
does its work but also on how the rest of
the organization responds to their change.
Outside support can encourage a team to
stick with their changes long enough to
XP: Dive Right In. The Waters Fine!
What You Get: Fewer defects More predictability Greater exibility Closer conformance between delivered features
and actual needs Shorter lead time for new features
How It Works: There are weekly milestone releases, each of
which is technically ready to deploy. Programmers, testers, and business experts write
automated tests that are exercised continuously. The whole team sits together in an open work-
space. Project information is up-to-date and prominently
displayed.
Whats Hard: The radical departure from the way some histori-
cally have developed software The creative management necessary for large proj-
ects requiring more people than t comfortably inone room
Taking active responsibility for your work
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13 AgileDevelopment | Spring 2006
see improvement and form new habits.
Executive support for the change is es-
sential for breaking organizational log
jams. Otherwise youll have a frustrated
team unable to grow because they cant
get the help they need.A limitation of learning XP on your
own is that teams sometimes cant imag-
ine how far they can take XP principles
and practices. I have pair programmed
with self-taught XPers for whom test-rst
programming and refactoring were a
revelation. They didnt realize just how
tiny the steps could be, how many tests
could protably be written, and howoften they could be run.
Teams that do cannonball success-
fully have a sense of pride and con-
dence in their accomplishments and
exibility. They know they can adapt to
whatever circumstances they encounter.
Racing Dive
Teams that want quick results and
are willing to trust outsiders often turnto XP coaches to learn a new style of
working without the chaotic splash. A
good coach can smooth out the rough
edges of your teams entry and save you
some of the pain of learning. By diving
in with professional support, teams that
use a professional coach still experience
rapid change, but they have the support of
someone who has been there before and
who has the experience to eliminate some
of the pain and accelerate the learning.
The racing dive is a good choice for
teams who want quick results but cant af-ford as much oundering and chaos as the
cannonballers. It is also a good choice for
teams who want the effects of XP but dont
have the courage or persistence to make
and sustain change on their own.
The main difculty for the racing
dive is nding a compatible coach. Good
coaches can be hard to nd. You need to
nd someone you are willing to work withand whose advice you trust. The biggest
downside I have seen to engaging a coach
is the tendency to fall back on old author-
ity patterns, treating the coach as the ex-
pert. It is all too easy for a team to give up
responsibility for their work to the coach.
Finding Your Style
Each of these strategies has its place.
Since people have very different appetitesfor change; a team may not even agree on
which strategy they are usingafter all,
one mans toe dip is another mans cannon-
ball. Here are some questions to help you
nd a style and pace of change that will
meet your needs. Taking the time to think
about and discuss these issues will smooth
XPs Safe Starts Whole Teamthe team includes
people with all the skills and con-nections it needs to succeed.
Sit Togetherthe team sits within
eye contact of each other. Pair Programmingtwo people
share programming conversations. Informative Workspaceplaster
the walls with up-to-date informa-tion about the project.
Weekly Planningchoose func-tionality to implement each week.
Quarterly Planningset quarterlythemes to be addressed by theweekly iterations.
Slackinclude some optionalitems in any schedule.
Test-frst Programmingcode bywriting a failing test, then makingthe system satisfy the test.
Incremental Designinvest inthe design only what is needed tocomfortably support todays sto-ries.
Storiesplan and track in incre-
ments of business functionality. Ten-minute Buildautomaticallybuild and test as much of the sys-tem as you can in ten minutes.
Continuous Integrationinte-grate your changes with the sharedcode every couple of hours atmost.
Energized Workwork and live soyou can bring energy to your work.
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14 AgileDevelopment | Spring 2006
http://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epfhttp://www.eclipse.org/epf8/9/2019 Spring 2006 Sample
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1 AgileDevelopment | Spring 2006
your transition.
How quickly do you need results?
How dramatic do they need to be?
What is the budget for outside help?
How strong are the relationships bothwithin the team and also between the
team and the rest of the organization?
Regardless of the style you choose,
once you make a change, beware of the
pressure to change back. When you make
a change, it puts a strain on surround-
ing people, resources, and organizations
related to that change. It takes awareness
and persistence to stick with a change and
follow through on its consequences in the
face of pressure from those around you to
make their lives easier by changing back.
An antidote to chang-ing back is being account-
able to a supportive com-
munity. If the whole team
decides that they are going
to integrate their changes
every hour, and how often
people integrate is public
knowledge, its much easier
to keep integrating ofteneven if it feels uncomfort-
able or seems inconvenient.
Even if you are the only one
making a change, you will
nd it easier if you partici-
pate in an online commu-
nity or attend your local
area users group meeting.
In time, rhythm replaces
strength.
Where you need to go to get support
will be very different depending on your
position in the organization and where the
impetus for change began. In the early days
of XP, almost all those wanting to apply it
were programmers out to improve their
own work. Project managers and customers
had little motivation to change their style
of work until the programmers had demon-
strated improvement. Programmers had to
get started with the parts of XP that were
purely technical: test-rst programming,
pair programming, continuous integration,incremental design. If you are a program-
mer wanting
support for
changing
your style of
work, show
why the
change is
good both foryou and for
those from
whom you
want support.
Share the
benets you
know about
and what you
have learned
from others.
Get a com-
mitment for
a trial. When
you have tried
the change,
report back to
your support-
Lane Markers
Guiding principles to
keep your project glid-
ing along:
Human speedpeo-
ple can only change
so fast. When that
speed is exceeded,they revert.
Self-interestpeo-
ple need to see why
the changes are in
their best interest.
Grow or die
change must spread
through an organiza-
tion. If not, those
who have changedwill be forced to
recant or leave.
Safetypeople need
to feel safe. They
need organizational
support through both
the hiccups and the
successes.
Flotation Devices
No matter where you start, these devices will
help you make the change to XP successfully.1. Read XP Explained, 2nd Edition. This will
give you a shared vocabulary for the tech-
niques you are about to try.
2. Share what you have learned with others.
Change happens best with the support of a
like-minded community.3. Make a public commitment to change. Call-
ing your shot in public is a great motivator to
stick with it when it gets hard.
4. Make a plan for your changes. XP-style
planning is a good way to prioritize when
you have many changes to make all at once.
Start with the area you can best leverage.
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16 AgileDevelopment | Spring 2006
ers about how it went and what you would
like to do next.
Increasingly, it is the business spon-
sors who are asking for XP because they
want to be able to see clearly into their
projects, to detect problems early, and to
be able to manage the scope of the system
as it evolves. For customers, the rst prac-
tices to implement might be those related
to planning: weekly and quarterly planning,
stories, and slack. To improve on-time deliv-
eries, the technical people on the team will
need to begin applying the technical prac-
tices, but establishing a shared understand-
ing of the evolving scope of the system canbe a big step toward working together.
Some people are in the position of
being forced to apply XP. If this describes
you, youll need to decide how you are
going to treat XP. You can resist or you can
make XP your own. Here is the case for try-
ing XP when your instincts compel you to
resist. One of the principles in XP is mutual
benet. As Gandhi said, Only that solutionis just that is in the best interest of all par-
ties. Changing to XP will likely be uncom-
fortable at times, but it should serve your
interests as well as those of the team and
the whole organization. Take advantage of
the opportunity to use XP to improve your
own work and practice. Take a look at the
practices listed in XPs Safe Starts. If one
of them reminds you of times youve been
especially effective at software develop-
ment, embrace it. Try it out yourself. Find
a buddy to try it with. Convince the team
to try it early. The result will be a change
process that intentionally meets your
needs, instead of one driven solely by other
peoples agendas.
Whatever your circumstances
whether you go in fast or slow, whether
you make a big splash or just a few ripples,
whether you have help or notXP has
something to offer you. Now is the time to
get started. Find a style of improvement
that suits you and begin the process today.
Software development has just begun to
create value in business. These improve-
ments are available to you as soon as you
begin applying XP.
AUTHOR BIOS: Kent Beckhas programmed for
thirty years. He lives in rural southern Oregon
with his wife (and co-author) Cynthia Andres,
four of their ve children, and a variable num-
ber of domestic fowl.
Cynthia Andres has spent twenty years
observing the evolution of programming
culture. She works as a change facilitator.
She is co-author ofExtreme Programming
Explained: Embrace Change 2nd edition.
InsideAgileImmersive Training & Project Delivery
XP is more craft than science; it is only truly
learned by ex perience.Brian Robertson
Work hand-in-hand with our Agile experts to
deliver your high priority project. Avoid the
pitfalls. Experience an environment where
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