The common sense of XP
"Ready ... Fire ... Aim! ... Aim! ... Aim!" So goes the mantra of eXtreme Programming (XP).
It's funny how many can get hung up on making plans and sticking to them much like a gun (ready, aim, fire) when a more flexible approach like XP is not only able to produce more usable interim results but is also more intuitive than it initially looks.
People forget that when they do even the simplest tasks like walking, cooking, or even talking they may look like they're following some plan but at the microscopic level are making unconscious adjustments. Take walking as an example: we walk around puddles, step over cracks, avoid oil slicks and chewing gum. When someone is coming our way we step aside. When it starts raining we shift to covered walks. At the macroscopic level it looks like we stuck to a plan of getting from point A to point B, but all throughout the trip we'd been making adjustments. In fact each step we take involves hundreds to thousands of adjustments happening all over our body.
We make millions (billions?) of adjustments a day in response to feedback our senses receive. Having inflexible plans of action is counterintuitive to the human experience. But some people I guess like to take comfort in having a plan, no matter how false that sense of security could be. No wonder XP and Agile methodologies have courage listed as one of the foundations. It takes courage to work outside a comfort zone.
It's never been a matter of courage for me because I've had my share of plans that didn't work but also have experienced many times how methodologies similar to XP and Agile actually produce results early on and guarantee better results all the way.
It's funny how many can get hung up on making plans and sticking to them much like a gun (ready, aim, fire) when a more flexible approach like XP is not only able to produce more usable interim results but is also more intuitive than it initially looks.
People forget that when they do even the simplest tasks like walking, cooking, or even talking they may look like they're following some plan but at the microscopic level are making unconscious adjustments. Take walking as an example: we walk around puddles, step over cracks, avoid oil slicks and chewing gum. When someone is coming our way we step aside. When it starts raining we shift to covered walks. At the macroscopic level it looks like we stuck to a plan of getting from point A to point B, but all throughout the trip we'd been making adjustments. In fact each step we take involves hundreds to thousands of adjustments happening all over our body.
We make millions (billions?) of adjustments a day in response to feedback our senses receive. Having inflexible plans of action is counterintuitive to the human experience. But some people I guess like to take comfort in having a plan, no matter how false that sense of security could be. No wonder XP and Agile methodologies have courage listed as one of the foundations. It takes courage to work outside a comfort zone.
It's never been a matter of courage for me because I've had my share of plans that didn't work but also have experienced many times how methodologies similar to XP and Agile actually produce results early on and guarantee better results all the way.
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