in 99 words

XP teams are self-organizing and cross-functional. This has two important consequences: first, they're responsible for their own success. This means teams define success (by interviewing stakeholders and sponsors), create plans to achieve success, and execute on those plans without explicit management direction.

Second, XP teams include all the expertise necessary to do so.

In practice, XP teams are composed of business experts ("customers"), implementation experts ("programmers"), and quality experts ("testers"). The whole team works together to create its own plans and deliver successful software. No single person is "in charge." Instead, leadership shifts fluidly with the situation.

as haiku

The soil is dry--
the irrigator has gone
I start to water

Commentary

TANSTAAFL

Inside the Book

• The XP Team
• The Whole Team
• On-Site Customers
  • Sidebar: Why So Many Customers?
  • The product manager (aka product owner)
  • Domain experts (aka subject matter experts)
  • Interaction designers
  • Business analysts
• Programmers
  • Designers and architects
  • Technical specialists
• Testers
  • Sidebar: Why So Few Testers?
• Coaches
  • The programmer-coach
  • The project manager
• Other Team Members
• The Project Community
  • Stakeholders
  • The executive sponsor
• Sidebar: XP Practices by Role
• Filling Roles
• Team Size
• Full-Time Team Members