Introducing Extreme Programming (Irrational Software)
I’m reading Extreme Programming Applied right now, and it contains many stories contributed by many people about their experiences with XP. Jack Bolles writes the following in a story about introducing XP into a project:
“The great secret to introducing XP into your project is [...] don’t. Rather, trust and empore the people you work with [...] to do the things that make them most productive. When things work, embrace them. When things don’t drop them. Look up after a few months. We did, and saw that we were doing something very close to textbook XP. Maybe this is the best test of a methodology: Given no direction, would a team naturally gravitate in that direction?”
I find this very interesting. This certainly requires volumes of communication and collaboration within the team, which can be harder to achieve than you might think. The question is, how do you stimulate communication and collaboration? I think a lot about that.