Extreme Programming (XP)

[Beth Agnew]

XP can be a bane or a blessing, depending on how your company implements it.
A key part of XP is the "user story", which directly relates to our tasks as
technical writers to help the user how to understand the product. If they
plan on having you involved with the programmers and help develop user
stories -- great!! Just being next to the developers as they work out the
programming can be very useful. In XP, programmers work in pairs, so they're
always talking about what they're doing, and you'll be able to overhear a
lot of it. Assuming your job will be eavesdropping, that is. At any rate,
the fact that they are starting to think about users during development is a
bonus. The other thing is the On-site customer. You should have access to a
typical user during the documentation process.

In a less desirable scenario, a company might implement XP thinking the user
stories they get out of the process can be a substitute for documentation,
or turned into documentation by someone other than an expensive technical
writer.

Sounds like you get a chance to build relationships with the programmers.
That's always good!
--Beth


-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+beth.agnew=senecac.on.ca at lists.techwr-l.com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+beth.agnew=senecac.on.ca at lists.techwr-l.com]On
Behalf Of Bill Kerschbaum
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2006 8:53 AM
To: techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: Extreme Programming (XP)


Anyone ever heard of extreme programming?

-------------------
Catch the Buzz: http://bethbuzz.blogspot.com
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Beth Agnew
Professor, Technical Communication
Seneca College of Applied Arts & Technology
Toronto, ON 416-491-5050 x3133
http://www.tinyurl.com/83u5u