If You Name It They Will Blame It

In a post to the XpMailingList, DaleEmery said this:

Names carry baggage. In fact, that's the whole point of names. The problem is, when you say XP, you are trying to convey one set of ideas, and when people hear you say XP, they hear a different set of ideas. You don't have control of what baggage people are going to attach to any name, including XP.

I've seen any number of processes go through something like a teenage romance cycle, starting with infatuation, and ending with disillusionment and bitterness. One thing that contributes to this cycle is that the process has a name. I made up the If You Name It, They Will Blame It principle. It works like this:

A small group of people have great success with some set of practices.
In their enthusiasm to share their success and learnings, they name their process, and tell others about the successes. They tell everything they can think of, but almost always leave out many of the tiny details that spell the difference between success and failure.
Other people, wanting successes themselves, become enthusiastic about the process. They use the name in every sentence they utter (perhaps trying to invoke "name magic"). The name invokes lots of inspiration and hope.
People try the process -- at least, the process as they understand it (which doesn't include all of the tiny, critical details). Some succeed wildly, which the process's enthusiasts usually attribute to the process. Some fail miserably, which the process's enthusiasts always attribute to "doing the process wrong".
People begin to notice the process's "failures". Even when the process succeeds, it may not live up to the magical expectations people had. The name loses its shine.
Disillusioned folks start to blame the process for the bad things -- the "failures" and unfulfilled expectations. They don't notice that their expectations were unwarranted. They now have the scapegoat they need, and their unwarranted expectations can remain intact. The name now carries more negative than positive baggage.
Throughout all of this, the practices remain the same. The name remains the same. Only the baggage changes.

In many cases, you'll have much better results if you don't worry about the name. Focus on the practices, and whether they are helping you.

See also: DontCallItExtreme. Also, this seems related to the AvoidNeologisms discussion.

But:

There is no way to avoid naming things. Thinking is using names and creating names. Plus, if you refuse to name it, someone else certainly will, and probably not as thoughtfully as you, leading to even greater catastrophe. (Example: CyberPunk)
The cure for the example problem is not to avoid a name. Instead avoid creating unnecessary hype content. Tell them that 70% of a success is the quality, experience and commitment of the people involved. If that sounds too much like "stone soup", then try JerryWeinberg's rule (from SecretsOfConsulting) of promising no more than 10% improvement over their old techniques. This both affirms the value of what they already do, and eliminates shoppers only in the market for shallow "hype".

: Better yet, don't call it anything. If asked what you've been doing just say "I've been writing better software faster than I ever have before and delighting the customer every two weeks. How about you?"

For some reason this reminds me of the lingustic gymnastics of representatives of a certain soap distribution company, whose company name begins with "A". A strong lesson in baggage attached to a name there.

There are several 'cures' listed on this page for the original example (including Dale's own recommendation). Maybe I am just a fatalist (hardly), but I don't think there is any 'cure' because there isn't any disease. The example describes a process that is probably as old as humanity (certainly we can find lots of examples from history, not just programming history). If anything, it looks suspiciously like a DharmaWheel?. To me, the 'answer,' if one is needed at all, is to simply understand and accept that this process occurs, identify where you are in that process at any given time, and use that information to manage expectations accordingly. Of course, that won't work either, but it might make you feel better while you do it. ;-) -- BillCaputo