releases.

4. Release small pieces of the system to the customers often. This is critical to getting valuable feedback in time to have an impact on the system’s development.

5. Use iterative development. Have a planning meeting at the beginning of each iteration to plan what will be done.

6. Move people around to avoid serious knowledge loss and coding bottlenecks. If only one person on the team can work in a given area and that person leaves, or more things need to be done in that section, the project’s progress can be reduced to a crawl.

7. Code unit test first. Creating a unit test helps a developer to really consider what needs to be done. Requirements are nailed down firmly by tests.

8. Pair up programmers. All code to be included in a production release is created by two people working together at a single computer. Pair programming increases software quality without impacting time to deliver. It is counterintuitive, but two people working at a single computer will add as much functionality as two working separately, except that it will be much higher in quality.

9. Hold a daily stand-up meeting. Communication among the entire team is the purpose of the stand-up meeting. A stand-up meeting every morning is used to communicate problems and solutions, and to promote team focus.

10. Create spike solutions to figure out answers to tough technical or design problems. A spike solution is a very simple program to explore potential solutions.

11. Keep the customer available, not only to help the development team, but to be a part of it as well.

12. Integrate often. Developers should be integrating and releasing code into the code repository every few hours, whenever possible.

12-step program

Extreme programming methodology advocates a 12-step plan to developing good software products. These are:

• Develop user stories

• Hold a release planning meeting

• Create the release plan

• Release small pieces often

• Use iterative development

• Move people around

• Code unit test first

• Pair up programmers

• Hold a daily stand-up meeting

• Create spike solutions

• Keep the customer available

• Integrate often.

For more information about eXtreme Programming, see the book eXtreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change, by Kent Beck.