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Every XP aficionado knows about the 4 values and 12 practices,
but how many people know about the 15 principles? I'll confess I
didn't when Kent talked about them at JAOO last week. After the talk I
asked Kent about them: "were they in the White Book". "Yes", he
replied, "cunningly hidden in a chapter called 'Basic Principles'". Fundamental Principles: - Rapid Feedback
- Assume Simplicity
- Incremental Change
- Embracing Change
- Quality Work
Further Principles: - Teach Learning
- Small Initial Investment
- Play to Win
- Concrete Experiments
- Open, honest Communication
- Work with people's
instincts - not against them
- Accepted Responsibility
- Local
Adaptation
- Travel Light
- Honest Measurement
At the JAOO talk, Kent talked about how principles were a step
between the universality (and vagueness) of values and the
concreteness (and dogmatism) of practices. In the White
Book he said "These principles will help us as we choose between
alternatives. We will prefer an alternative that meets the
principles more fully to one that doesn't. Each principle embodies
the values. A value may be vague. One person's simple is another
person's complex. A principle is more concrete. Either you have rapid
feedback or you don't." The principles haven't been talked about much, even by Kent. I
think that's why they aren't so well known. The values and practices
were discussed, debated, and refined on the wiki in the formative
stages of describing XP. Kent prepared the principles primarily for
the White Book. Refreshing my mind with them now, I can see why Kent wanted to
remind everyone of them at JAOO. One of the biggest issues with XP,
and indeed with any agile method, is how to do the essential local
adaptation where you alter the process to fit the local
conditions. The principles help provide some guidelines on what bits
of adaptation will work, and which go against the XP grain. They are
part of the essence of XP that every skilled XPer both knows, and
finds difficult to communicate. I'll remember to mention them
whenever I describe XP in future.
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