RE: Re: Sticking point

Glen,

I'm a few days behind, but I wanted to respond to this because I think
you summarize some problems really well.

> Charlie, how about this? Let's focus our efforts on the problem of
> rolling out XP into a high or moderate ceremony business environment
> where the listener has little or no interest in the vocabulary of XP as
> it pertains to the self actualizing practices.

OK, that implies that we ened to find a vocabulary that works. That's
a reasonable and I think doable objective.
 
> Much of the work we do here is NOT writing code, but integrating COTS
> products, getting others to write code for us, getting the customer to
> NOT actually ask for things etc. XP has lots to offer when viewed as
> "Extreme Customering."

Applying XP to stuff that's not programming obviously requires making 
some changes - you're using XP as a metaphor and possibly borrowing 
some practices. I have no problem with this, and I'm even interested
in hearing about it. I'm much more interested in the use of XP to make
it more likely that people will decide to build, rather than buy, in
some circumstances. 

> I personally got sideways a few times, when the programmer acting as CIO
> view was put forward. I'm over that now. Maybe others are too, so we can
> get back to the "customer-centered" view that what is needed is good, on
> time, affordable software without knowing much about how it gets there. 

That happens. We all need to learn that our words can be taken to mean
various things, even where we think we have a shared understanding or
a set of conventions. I do think that everyone on this list has been
trying to communicate.

> In fact this may be the paradigm shift - how can we talk about agile
> practices from the view of the customer, manager, or funding source?
> What kinds of practices would they want to use to aid in the outcome.
> I'm not so interested in the details of story cards, SCRUM meetings,
> etc., those area actually too low level for my needs. We just had a blow
> up (no literally) of a customer because of mis-communication of intent.
> An XP practice of continuous engagement and continuous delivery would
> have adverted this situation. If we had had a release that could be in
> place in a few hours all would be forgiven.

I'm beginning to wonder whether we don't all need - we who practice XP
and try to convince people to adopt it - to get our act together among
ourselves. How far can you adjust or adapt? How can you express things
so that you aren't betraying the spirit of XP but also not putting off
the folks you want to convince? What does XP demand/expect of management
in order to find a home and deliver value?

We all have different styles and different levels of tolerance for
adjusting to the existing culture. How can we work together? Maybe
we need to have some separate discussion of this before we talk
to the "mainstream" at least as a group.

With respect to level of detail... I generally go into any management
meeting with all the details I need ready to pull out when asked. But
I don't put them forth until I'm asked. Instead I talk about benefits,
values, problems that need to be solved. At the highest level, I might
say "XP will give you better visibility of the progress of the project."
At the next, I might say, "Instead of _only_ getting reports, you'll
receive reports of what's done that can be verified by you or anyone
else just by looking at the tests and even the running software itself."
Only if I'm asked "But how do you do that?" will I pull out the specifics
and talk about how it works - all the while watching for signs that
I'm boring the audience, who really only wanted to show that they
were exercising due diligence and didn't want a course in XP.

I've always argued that this sort of thing was individual and best
left to the folks who are trying to get XP used for a project. After
spending some time here, I'm concluding that we need some practices
for presenting XP to others. 

Charlie Poole
[email protected]
www.pooleconsulting.com
www.charliepoole.org




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