The Art of Agile Development

444 Pages·2007·3.27 MB·English

by  James Shore

The Art of Agile Development

The Art of Agile Development
James Shore and Shane Warden
Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo
The Art of Agile Development
by James Shore and Shane Warden
Copyright © 2008 James Shore and chromatic. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472.
O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also
available for most titles (http://safari.oreilly.com). For more information, contact our corporate/institutional
sales department: [phone] or [email protected].
Editor: Mary O’Brien Indexer: Joe Wizda
Production Editor: Sarah Schneider Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery
Copyeditor: Sarah Schneider Interior Designer: David Futato
Proofreader: Sada Preisch Illustrator: Robert Romano
Printing History:
October 2007: First Edition.
The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. The Theory in Practice series
designations, The Art of Agile Development, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly
Media, Inc.
While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and authors assume no
responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained
herein.
TM
This book uses RepKover™, a durable and flexible lay-flat binding.
ISBN: 978-0-596-52767-9
[C] [1/10]
1263253177
To our families.

Table of Contents
Preface .......................................................................... xxiii
Part I. Getting Started
1. Why Agile? ................................................................... 3
Understanding Success 3
Beyond Deadlines 4
The Importance of Organizational Success 5
Enter Agility 6
Organizational Success 6
Technical Success 7
Personal Success 7
2. How to Be Agile .............................................................. 9
Agile Methods 9
Don’t Make Your Own Method 9
The Road to Mastery 11
Find a Mentor 12
3. Understanding XP ......................................................... 15
The XP Lifecycle 17
How It Works 19
Our Story Continues 22
The XP Team 28
The Whole Team 28
On-Site Customers 29
Programmers 33
Testers 34
Coaches 35
Other Team Members 36
The Project Community 36
Filling Roles 39
Team Size 39
IX
Full-Time Team Members 40
XP Concepts 40
Refactoring 41
Technical Debt 41
Timeboxing 41
The Last Responsible Moment 42
Stories 42
Iterations 42
Velocity 43
Theory of Constraints 43
Mindfulness 43
4. Adopting XP ................................................................ 45
Is XP Right for Us? 45
Prerequisite #1: Management Support 46
Prerequisite #2: Team Agreement 46
Prerequisite #3: A Colocated Team 47
Prerequisite #4: On-Site Customers 47
Prerequisite #5: The Right Team Size 49
Prerequisite #6: Use All the Practices 50
Recommendation #1: A Brand-New Codebase 51
Recommendation #2: Strong Design Skills 51
Recommendation #3: A Language That’s Easy to Refactor 52
Recommendation #4: An Experienced Programmer-Coach 52
Recommendation #5: A Friendly and Cohesive Team 53
Go! 53
The Challenge of Change 55
Final Preparation 56
Applying XP to a Brand-New Project (Recommended) 57
Applying XP to an Existing Project 59
Applying XP in a Phase-Based Organization 62
Extremities: Applying Bits and Pieces of XP 64
Assess Your Agility 65
Self-Assessment Quiz 67
Part II. Practicing XP
5. Thinking .................................................................... 73
Pair Programming 74
Why Pair? 75
How to Pair 75
Driving and Navigating 76
Pairing Stations 77
Challenges 78
Questions 79
Results 81
Contraindications 81
X TABLE OF CONTENTS