How to Start an XP Project: The Initial Phase

Abstract

Within Extreme Programming, the initial phase of a project is the exploration phase. This phase should establish a common view of the system to be built and provide the base for what XP calls “productionizing” — the full-fledged XP development iterations. Therefore this phase is of crucial importance to the whole project. While there is a lot of documented experience with the XP process itself, little has been said about the initial phase. This tutorial presents a number of best practices and experiences to structure and master the exploration phase. They will guide the team from the kick-off meeting to the first implementation of the system skeleton. The techniques presented have been adapted to XP from experience gained in twelve years of consulting in professional object-oriented development projects. They have been successfully applied in numerous XP projects, ranging from high-pressure short-term to large-scale long-term, from finance to the health domain, and from greenfield development to legacy system replacement.