Planning Extreme Programming [Paperback]

To achieve this the authors focus away from complex, report-led planning to a people-oriented process which treats programming like a craft project. Extreme Programming starts by recognising reality: start right and you'll finish right. In fact the authors specifically argue against overtime, increasing manpower on late projects and other such attempts to increase productivity as evidence of failure. They start by breaking projects into stories (or features), insist on customer involvement, iterate relentlessly over a timescale of weeks, set short-term targets based on the evidence of previous iterations and--in a break with traditional practices--absolutely insist on customer involvement at every stage, including signing off each story.

The claimed results of applying the XP approach is a better product with fewer bugs as well as the ability to meet agreed deadlines and budgets. Pretty impressive claims for a book that reads like a set of obvious, common-sense rules. Astonishingly, the only planning tool required is a box of index cards and the right attitude. You are even recommended to avoid spreadsheets. Perhaps, then, the real success of Extreme Programming rests on its implicit acknowledgement that programming is a craft, and not engineering. What can you say? It works. Read it and then implement it. -- Steve Patient

The complete guide to planning your next XP software project!
Essential techniques for taming projects on "Internet time!"
Easy steps managers can perform every day to keep XP projects under control and headed in the right direction.
An enjoyable, quick read, full of ideas that apply in any project, software-related or not! In this timely follow-up to Extreme Programming Explained, software engineering gurus Kent Beck and Martin Fowler show exactly how to plan your next software project using Extreme Programming (XP). Planning is a vital element of software development but all too often, planning stops when coding begins. Beck and Fowler show how to make software projects far more manageable through a series of simple planning steps every project manager and team leader can easily perform every day. The book follows XP projects from start to finish, presenting successful planning tactics managers and team leaders can use to adjust to changing environments more quickly and efficiently than ever before. This book is full of war stories and real-world analogies, and offers actionable techniques on virtually every page. It will be invaluable for every project manager called upon to deliver reliable, high-value code in "Internet time."