Planning Game Name Change

: The PlanningGame gains a little emotional distance from planning by treating it as a game (hence the name). The game has a goal, playing pieces, players, and rules for allowable moves. [emphasis added]

During one of the sessions at XP2000, KentBeck made a side comment suggesting that this name appeared only once in the text of the upcoming book, and is in some sense deprecated. If the "Kent preferred" name is changing, does this indicate that the emotional distancing spoken of above hasn't quite worked as planned? Or is there some other driver.

This is of particular interest to me since my main interest in XP is in working under a process that doesn't involve lying. The activities that currently come under the rubric of "planning game" seem to the only project planning and tracking practices around that aren't based on guesswork, wishful thinking and lies (witting or otherwise). From my limited experience it is also the hardest part of XP to "sell". It may just be that I'm a bad salesman, of course.

However, if there is a more palatable, to TheManagement?, approach to these ideas coming along (or, one easier for poor sellers to use), then that would be most welcome. -- KeithBraithwaite

The issue, as I understand it, is that the phrase "Planning Game" is off-putting to some people who think Planning Is Everything. The "game" part of it may trivialize the power and importance of the technique, and may actually reduce the chance that people will try it. Techniques are the same. Name may be different. Or not. --RonJeffries

Sounds like a worthwhile change, then.

My main interest in XP is in working under a process that doesn't involve lying.

Well said. Integrity and a new service ethic should be at the forefront of the drive for XP. It's NotJustIgnorance that we're dealing with.

moved here from ChiefArchitect

What you call people and processes matters. But some names matter more than others. I've always disliked or at best tolerated the name "PlanningGame". -- RichardDrake

Just so you know, the new book on planning has one reference to the PlanningGame and the three authors (Kent, Martin, and UncleBob) are thinking they should just take it out completely. Instead of PlanningGame they use ReleasePlanning, which matches up with IterationPlanning very nicely. --DonWells

My mole from XP2000 has already told me that. In ControlledRapidEvolutionaryDelivery (SevenPillarsOfCred) we had quite a battle between the two terms MilestonePlanning? (a superset of ReleasePlanning I guess but I'm much happier with that term, if anyone cares!) and the ImpactModelling that preceded it (at least logically), which is not far from what RalphHodgson calls SystemEnvisioning. -- RichardDrake