RE: Managing Extreme Programming

George,

 

One troubling concept in all this discussion is the assumption that ALL
software development project are based on emergent requirements of the
type addressable by pure-XP. This is simply not the case. However many
of the XP practices as useful no matter what the "chaos" level of the
project. Many of our projects and most of hose in aerospace and telecom,
have externally specified requirements, since these systems are embedded
in larger systems. Yes the requirements are the interfaces can and do
change, but they are not "discovery" requirements in the manner
suggested by many XP authors - where the user has no a clue as to what
she wants and XP provides adaptive development process.

 

The requirements we receive here are say 80% to 90% defined when we get
them, adapting to changes in a rapid manner is useful, but PP, 100%UT,
CM and all the downstream XP practices are more useful in the end
because quality and on time deliver are "assured" - in the traditional
methods of the past they were not.

 

The time and expense of changes the requirements is NOT what prevents
the customer from changing them. What prevents them from changing them
is the system is embedded in a larger scheme and there is no economic
advantage to change them. The class of problem we are providing
solutions to is a "systems engineering" problem not a point solution
problem.

 

Glen B. Alleman

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Dinwiddie, George [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 6:55 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [xpAdoption] Managing Extreme Programming

 

It seems to me that this is a natural consequence of a customer who is
distinctly non-agile in producing requirements.  I don't doubt that the
real world changes just as fast for them as for everyone else, but they
have a considerably longer decision proces.  The time and expense of
changing requirements causes your customer to avoid it if at all
possible.

	-----Original Message-----
	From: Alleman, Glen B. [mailto:[email protected]]  

	[>] The added value of EV in the XP world is to add to the
"velocity" metric the accrued value. That is use the BCWS as the target
value rather than yesterday's weather. Adding or deleting stories in EV
means scope changes so we are careful not to allow this except in
special circumstances. Our world here is not discovery design so this is
rare.