Extreme Programming Installed Ch 19-21

Summary

Chapter 19 – Steering – This chapter is about the importance of steering an XP project. Over the course of a project a large number of stories become easier and easier to do, however, there will also be stories that take much longer than originally estimated. All you have to do to have a successful process is to assess the situation and steer the project. If some stories are taking more time that what you expected then re-estimate other similar stories and rearrange them if necessary. According to this chapter, the process of selecting and steering will deliver a great product.

Chapter 20 – Steering the Interaction – This chapter is about steering each iteration in an XP project. The main point of each iteration is to complete stories. However, it is not the only thing that matters. We also need to reflect on the initial estimates of stories in order to better predict next stories. We can better achieve this by tracking the tasks. There should be a person assigned to track the stories chosen, the tasks to be done, who signed up, and what their estimate was at least every few days. Tracking is critical in the XP process.

Chapter 21 – Steering the Release – this chapter is, as the title indicates, about steering the release. There are two important things to two at the release level: when are you going to release, and what will you have when you do so. The first thing is to know what’s done, and you can achieve this by using acceptance tests. Then, to know how close you are to release, you just need to know which stories remain to be done. Steering the release is the most critical aspect of XP, and can be achieved by estimating difficulty accurately, measuring performance and refining the estimates.

Discussion

These three chapters were very correlated and were all about steering. I believe that is an important point in any project, whether developed under the XP process or not. Tracking what you have done and what remains to be done is crucial in order to deliver your product on time. The chapters were interesting; however, the fact that they talk about having a person dedicating to tracking seems a little unrealistic.