The Art of Agile Development: The XP Lifecycle

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in 99 words

It sounds ridiculous: Extreme Programming eliminates analysis, design, and testing phases, along with their associated documentation.

But look closer: it's phases that are eliminated, not activities. XP teams perform significant analysis, design, testing, and coding every day. The secret? High-bandwidth communication, cross-functional teams, and practices tuned for iterative and incremental work. For example, test-driven development combines aspects of design, coding, and testing.

Short, timeboxed iterations provide structure, and the team produces potentially shippable software at the end of each iteration. Each iteration starts with a brief planning session and ends with a product demo and retrospective.

as haiku

A pause. bamboo thumps--
sun-warmed rain drips into earth
I inhale again

Deleted Scene

Material Cut from "Understanding XP"

Poster

'XP Lifecycle' poster

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Inside This Section

  • The XP Lifecycle
  • How It Works
    • Planning
    • Analysis
    • Design and Coding
    • Testing
    • Deployment
  • Sidebar: XP Practices by Phase
  • Our Story Continues
  • Sidebar: A Little Lie

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