SPA Conference session: Is eXtreme Programming alive and kicking?

One-line description:Come to this session if you have an interest in hearing about current state of XP and how it's been evolving.
 
Session format: Case Study [read about the different session types]
 
Abstract:Back in 2000, we worked together as Java developers at Connextra - one of the first companies trying eXtreme Programming in UK. If you've ever been asked to write stories using the “As a ..I want..so that..” way, then blame our team - we were also the originators of Mock Objects.

Perhaps because of the scary XP moniker which implies a full-on approach, other agile approaches have become more popular across industry in subsequent years. No equivalent organisation to the Scrum Alliance or Lean SSC exists that is dedicated to promoting XP and advancing the state of practice, unless you count London's very own eXtreme Tuesday Club. XP has therefore become more of a grass roots approach for software developers with most organisations opting for much less extreme agile approaches, although still pulling in milder XP practices such as user stories, velocity, and test-driven development.

We've found it really interesting to see how many old-school XP practices are still helping developers and where gaps remain (such as working with UX and Infra specialists). It's also been interesting to see how open our XP team is to “embracing change” and experimenting with ideas from Kanban and Scrum.

The objectives for this session are to reflect on XP practice and engage session participants in discussion of whether XP is alive and worth pursuing.
 
Audience background:No required prior knowledge of XP is required, although this session is more aimed at practitioners who have some experience with applying XP. Would be of interest to a variety of job roles including specialists such as UX who are looking for ideas on how to work with agile software developers.
 
Benefits of participating:Gaining a more rounded view of XP and gaps in the practices that may still need to be filled.
 
Materials provided:Slide presentation.
 
Process:Start with a presentation and then move to a group discussion.
 
Detailed timetable:00:00-00:25 Presentation of experiences
00:25-01:00 Group discussion
01:00-01:15 Conclusions
 
Outputs:Photos of flipcharts and write-up on wiki
 
History:This session has been accepted as a talk for ACCU 2013 by Rachel Davies.
 
Presenters
1. Rachel Davies
Unruly Media
2. Ivan Moore
Team Optimization
3. Tim Mackinnon
Iterex Ltd.