developerWorks: Working Smarter, Not Harder: An Interview with Kent Beck

“developerWorks: How did XP come about?

“Beck: In the first part of 1996, I was a
consultant for Smalltalk performance problems. I received a call
about a [payroll] project for Chrysler. When I asked for their
tests so I knew if I broke something, they said that they weren’t
actually computing any answers yet–not a good answer. Until you
care about answers you can make any program go really fast. But the
point is to get the correct answer. Any project that’s lost sight
of that is a project in trouble from the get-go.

“The project had serious problems — everything from the
contractual arrangement, to exhausted people, to lowered voices.
After three days I told the CIO of Chrysler, Sue Unger, that she
had three options: keep going, which no one wanted; cancel the
project and fire everyone; or give everyone a week off and start
over. She picked option ‘c’ and said ‘but you’re in charge.’

“Up until then I believed better programming would solve all the
world’s ills. Yes, you can screw up the programming so badly you
kill the project. Usually, however, the problem concerns
relationships between the business people and the programmers, the
budget process, poor communications–factors unrelated to the
programming. The context in which the software development takes
place proves as important to the project’s success as the
programming itself…”

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