Extreme Programming Got Me Fired

"I just counted five people [in a room at a conference] who were technically successful in their projects, much more so than the norm in their companies, and they were all fired as a result." --KentBeck (from an SIP draft)

Extreme Programming got me fired. But senior PointyHairedBosses had nothing to do with it. I've learnt XP by myself and understood why it's better than having no process at all. And why it's better than a heavy weight methodology. But my CowOrkers didn't feel the same way. After trying to sell them the engineering practices of XP, I've just settled for scrum (ScrumProcess). They said that they agreed with it, just to avoid Gantt charts. But they never ever appeared on time to the meetings, and I have to move them like sheep. When things went wrong, they pointed at the process they didn't follow. All this just got me tired, and I had no upper management support. In fact upper management is virtually not existent at this company. This situation burnt me and I chose ChangeYourOrganization instead of ChangeYourOrganization. Now I'm back in school and getting a PhD. -- anon

Please add other real life stories of XP getting you fired here...

Somewhere, at an executive resort on a tropical island, two elderly PointyHairedBosses reminisce over rum and cokes...

PHB1: We streamlined R&D on the West Coast this quarter.

PHB2: Did it work?

PHB1: You bet. The CTO is getting weekly progress reports again.

PHB2: What happened before that?

PHB1: She says a bunch of her guys started trying to do ExtremeProgramming...

PHB2: Haw haw! I don't wanna hear it!

PHB1: You been there, right?

PHB2: I been there.

PHB1: Okay, but me first! So those guys refused to submit a progress report, right? But get this - they approached our number one customer, and they were sending them a new version of their program every week.

PHB2: Damn they got brass. What did your marketing department think of it?

PHB1: They didn't care! But you could tell they weren't getting anything done - it was just a smoke screen. They never gave the CTO any design documents, or progress reports. When she asked, they just told her to go in the lab and read the scribbles on their whiteboard.

PHB2: Haw haw haw!

PHB1: So then I go to cut the budget, and I ask the CTO who to let go. She took care of it.

PHB2: Did you get any new guys?

PHB1: They're working out great! Now that they are actually adding features, they work late...

PHB2 nods

PHB1: ...fixing bugs, and their design documents look great. The CTO is really happy with these guys. So what happened to you?

PHB2: Okay. We're working on Version 3, right? So we got this guy on to maintain Version 2. But whenever they checked up on him, he was just writing tests.

PHB1: What the hell for? This stuff ain't rocket surgery...

PHB2: Like we told him. Then they told him to port his fixes to Version 3, and he starts porting his tests, too. He kept telling the Version 3 guys to run them, but they kept breaking on the Version 3 guys's workstations, and he said they weren't "configured" right. Everyone has the same Visual Studio, right?

PHB1: Haw haw!

PHB2: We let him go. We told the V2 customers they gotta wait for V3 now.

PHB1: Don't tell me - he was trying to do...

Both: ExtremeProgramming!

PHB2: That academic crap is gonna ruin the industry...

Contrast: ExtremeProgrammingGotMeHired