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The XP Customer Role in Practice: Three Case Studies

The XP Customer Role in Practice: Three Case Studies. Method. We used interpretative in-depth case studies We obtained multiple perspectives, from the customer, developers and business people We used semi-structured one-on-one interviews to collect the data

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The XP Customer Role in Practice: Three Case Studies

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  1. The XP Customer Role in Practice: Three Case Studies

  2. Method • We used interpretative in-depth case studies • We obtained multiple perspectives, from the customer, developers and business people • We used semi-structured one-on-one interviews to collect the data • We validated our raw data and our interpreted findings with each interviewee • We use a number of quotes from the interview to illustrate our findings The XP Customer Role in Practice Martin, Biddle & Noble Slide 2

  3. Intranet content - outsourced XP project • Three New Zealand organisations were involved: • KiwiCorp - client • DevCorp – development vendor • BureauCorp – infrastructure vendor • The project has previously been tried and failed • The XP Customer is a KiwiCorp librarian. She had access to specialist support: • Prioritisation decisions – KiwiCorp Manager • Acceptance testing – KiwiCorp Testers • Writing user stories – DevCorp Analyst • Non-standard XP implementation, an up-front requirements phase occurred Project Endeavour The XP Customer Role in Practice Martin, Biddle & Noble Slide 3

  4. Scientific software product - XP project • RavenCorp is a start-up company based in the U.S. • Project is to move an academic concept to a commercial product • The XP Customer is one of the founding research scientists and has had access to specialist support: • Product concept & vision – founding director • Testing – research scientists + testing specialist • But he also had to undertake multiple roles including programmer and development manager • All XP practices have been followed, planning process was modified to reduce meeting length Project Discovery The XP Customer Role in Practice Martin, Biddle & Noble Slide 4

  5. Application development tool - XP project • EagleCorp is a U.S. software product company • Project is to redevelop their flagship product • The XP Customer is an existing product manager • He had access to specialist support: • User interface design – user interface designer • Architecture + technical requirements – architect • User guide development – technical writer • Testing – quality assurance team • All XP practices have been followed, personas were utilised to assist with user story development Project Atlantis The XP Customer Role in Practice Martin, Biddle & Noble Slide 5

  6. The XP Customer must be supported by other organisation & project roles • Varies in each case as each customer had different strengths and weaknesses • The XP Customer needs more practices and techniques to support their role • Particularly requirements gathering and decomposition techniques • The importance of prioritisation is something that is learnt by experience • The KiwiCorp and RavenCorp customers did not fully grasp the need to prioritise until the end Results The XP Customer Role in Practice Martin, Biddle & Noble Slide 6

  7. Is it sustainable? • “We probably needed about three of me … it’s been my life for about a year … look at these grey hairs” • Customer, KiwiCorp • “I’ve always worked at least 70, [or] 80 [hours a week] ... I don’t even mind it, its like what I do …” • Customer, RavenCorp • “The iteration processes are quite exhausting. Every two weeks you are doing another product release … so it’s a very intense process to maintain • … I think it’s worked very well, but … I don’t know how long it will be possible to keep this pace up” • Customer, EagleCorp Results The XP Customer Role in Practice Martin, Biddle & Noble Slide 7

  8. The XP Customer role is difficult and requires serious consideration • The existing XP Customer practices appear to be achieving excellent results • However, we have found that the XP customer is consistently under significantly more pressure than the developers or other project participants • Leading us to question the sustainability of this role, particularly on long or high-pressure projects • XP has focussed on building effective development team practices: we now need to explore the processes that will support the XP customer Conclusions The XP Customer Role in Practice Martin, Biddle & Noble Slide 8

  9. Angela Martin RobertBiddle JamesNoble Victoria University Wellington New Zealand The XP Customer Role in Practice: Three Case Studies

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