Extreme Programming On Ice

I noticed a similarity between my daughters ice-skating and XP. My daughter is involved in synchronized skating (AKA precision skating). What the coaches did was to first teach the kids a routine that fit all the requisite competition rules. This was a very basic routine. Nothing fancy just what was needed to compete. They practiced this until it was well known. Then the coaches began to add something extra at each session and practice the whole routine until it was properly integrated. At any point in time the team is ready to compete. There are three competitions through out the year. At each competition the routine they will perform is as complex as possible with high quality given the time they have to practice it.

Note that this is like the XP approach of getting a minimal but whole system into production as soon as possible. Then add more functionality as resources allow. Test your system as you go such that at (almost) any point the system is ready for production. --DonWells

Great analogy. As with musical analogies there's both the rhythm of the practice sessions and the rhythm of the performance. I've been wondering what the latter corresponds to in our systems ('300MHz' doesn't quite satisfy me as an answer!) --RichardDrake

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