XP: My Greatest Misses 2000-2008
Any successful recording artist eventually submits to releasing a “Greatest Hits” album. This is the opposite: a beat-up XP coach putting his biggest and furthest-reaching mistakes in a neat package and releasing them to the public. This talk could also be named “Ten ways to guarantee your Agile transition is a total failure”, or “Apologies of an XP coach”; however I’m sure I’ll mention more than ten mistakes and I make no apology for them.
ORIGINAL SUMMARY:
Any successful recording artist eventually submits to releasing a “Greatest Hits” album. They collect their best-loved, most successful songs and put them into a neat package that not only provides great marketing material, but neatly sums up their career to that point. It therefore seems only fair that a beat-up XP coach who has been through the ringer a few times should collect his biggest and furthest-reaching mistakes, bring them together in a neat package and release them to the public. This is that talk.
This talk could also be named “Ten ways to guarantee your Agile transition is a total failure”, or “Apologies of an XP coach”; however I’m sure I’ll mention more than ten mistakes and I make no apology for them.
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and leave with a greater appreciation for the difficult task of helping people learn to become agile software practitioners.
Agenda: Talk 60-75 minutes, followed by Q&A
You can find a handout from this talk here: http://tinyurl.com/34se73, with edits to come for 2008.
I have given this talk at Agile 2007 and at various user group meetings. In late 2007, the handout circled the web as people commented on how refreshingly frank and honest the article is at chronicling the struggle to practice and teach Extreme Programming.