Following the MontrealXpCalculator initiative, MontrealXpUsersGroup decided to design, plan, implement and deliver a calculator.
Of course, the goal of this project is not the end product (even if our customers want the best product on the market).
The goal is to understand Xp by doing Xp, and the simulation is as close to reality as can be.
We use IterationPlanning, TestFirst, PairProgramming and (all?) other Xp practices.
Two of us agreed to play the customer role for the length of the project.
Here is a very basic project progress report (we won't put stories, estimates and tracking information here) :
- August : we voted for a calculator (discarding suggestions for a Tetris or an ftp server). Customer roles were also assigned, so that we could begin right away simulations of meeting (so we have an OnsiteCustomer, actually two).
- September : the customers expressed their needs, and answered the developers questions to make requirements more precise. Developers then estimated user stories, which led to a few off-topic tech discussion.
- October : developers asked the customers to pick their top priority stories. Then, developers estimated that we could do those stories before the end of the meeting (we agreed that one iteration equals one meeting). However, we got lost in trying to set up a proper CVS repository (which we realized after a frantic 45 minutes we would not need). Then , by the time we had configured laptops, created pairs (or trios) and typed a few unit tests, our time was over. Result : we implemented about one tenth of a point where we thought we could do 3. We learned a lot. As usual. So we'll try to make better next time.
- November : we plan to continue with developing the calculator during Iteration1 (the first iteration was shamelessly called Iteration0 given the work that was done).
Feel free to add your comments or refactor this page (do we want to create one page per iteration ?). Seb
Montreal Xp Calculator Game