Extreme programming (XP) and the Enterprise.

I just finished reading an interesting article on the IEEE computer magazine that deal with implementation of XP inside enterprises. One of the article conclusions was that XP needs modifications and adaptation in order to be integrated successfully into the organization development process. As far as my experience shows that what I’ve been seen so fat.

There are points in XP that goes without any problems like short development cycles, pair programming but there are several points that usually need some adaptation. Most of the time those adaptations are by product of the enterprise culture and not because XP has the blame. One of the most common conflict rises when enterprise development is cross team and physical location (sometime even cross time). XP is focused on group and therefore isn’t addressing cross group communication. To address this issue more formal communication such as documentation is heavily used. Refactoring that change base code by any programmer might clash with existing quality control systems and code integration.

All the mention points and other usually cause that every enterprise got it own mutation of XP that match the enterprise culture and needs.