program selection system

LANDesk Software started developing their shrink wrapped products using a variant of extreme programming (XP) in 2002. They made significant changes to a large legacy system, but wanted to communicate better with customers. They expanded their Human Factors team to focus on this problem. The Human Factors team developed personae to integrate the user into the development process.

Has your boss ever asked you to speed up your project? After you explain there are not enough hours in the day, more programmers are assigned to your project. Now you can’t even come close to getting your work done; now your teaching the new programmers but watching every line of code they write! It’s classic Brooks’ Law; adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. Brooks’ is right for a traditional team, but he never worked on a fully developed agile team implementing Extreme Programming.