Planning Extreme Programming

Few weeks ago I read book Planning Extreme Programming (The XP Series) by Kent Beck and Martin Fowler. To be honest according to the names on the book cover I expected more from this book. If you are professional and already have experience with extreme programming or agile software development this book will not give you too much. If you are new to this style of software development, or planning agile software development at all, I would for sure recommend this book so you can get overview and explanation why agile software development (particularly Extreme Programming) works better than more traditional approaches. Then for sure you need to read additional books to get even better understanding of the Extreme Programming.

In the book there is lot of comparison of planning we are applying in every day life and how to take that approach for software development.

After initial introduction in the few first chapters you are going into planning process more and more .

You will learn how to write user stories, how to do estimations, you will see that there is no plan but the planning process. You will learn why the first plan is the hardest one and then how the process of release planning works. After release plan is prepared iterations planning takes place. Iterations are steps within release that will help you to reach the final goal, successful project.

So for the end, my conclusion would be. If you are new to agile software development read the book as it gives excellent introduction and gives you understanding why agile approaches should work.

If you would like to find out more about user stories that are the base for the planning process you can read my review of the book User Stories Applied.