Is agile now more about process than people? Frameworks tend exclusively to process & have no opinion on how engineers should build software. At it’s core, XP is all about engineering & “Continuous attention to technical excellence”. It’s time to put the spotlight back on XP as a path to enhanced agility.
The original challenge facing software development teams was an inability to deliver software frequently or at all. Over the past two decades agile has broadly solved this. This can mostly be attributed to Agile process improvements, smaller tends to flow faster:
* smaller work items
* smaller batch sizes
* shorter cadence
Engineering improvements seem less necessary. Is the ability to release frequently with existing engineering practices sufficient? Should we declare victory now? The focus on process over people has caused a rift between engineering methods and agile delivery methods. Teams feel like Agile is being done TO them. Frameworks have fueled this by offering zero guidance on how to improve engineering. For agile to thrive we cannot improve process alone, we must also get better at “how we build software”. We have made the factory more efficient while paying little attention to improving the production line. Surely the next step is to increase focus on Engineering? Not WHAT we build or HOW MUCH we build but HOW we build. We cannot enhance agility without “Continuous attention to technical excellence” and for this we need engineering teams fully engaged and on board. This talk aims to revisit XP in the context of where Agile is now as a means of complementing our processes with increased emphasis on improvements in engineering.
Video producer: https://www.agile.cymru/