Toronto Extreme Hour

BryanZarnett and MikeBowler have run the ExtremeHour in Toronto a couple of times.

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Mar 27, 2001 - TorontoAplUsersGroup

We ran the ExtremeHour at the TorontoAplUsersGroup with 12 people split into two groups. This was an excellent size group for the ExtremeHour.

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Feb 6, 2001 - TorontoJavaUsersGroup

This time we ran the ExtremeHour at the TorontoJavaUsersGroup with about 145 people split into 13 groups. Overall, it went over very well but next time we'd prefer a smaller group. It's very difficult to keep an eye on 13 groups to make sure they understand the points you're trying to get across. Fortunately, we had some members of the TorontoXpUsersGroup on hand to help out.

The project again was "a device to make coffee". We followed the same format as before but this time used cards for stories, tasks and functional tests and used whiteboards only for drawing the final device.

We split the night into three sections. First we gave a high level overview of XP. Then we ran everyone through two iterations of the Extreme Hour. Finally we discussed some of the other aspects of XP in more depth - things like pair programming and automated tests. The whole evening ran just over two hours and everyone seemed to be having a good time.

One group decided to scrap their drawing and start from scratch. They got most of the drawing redone within the time limit but ended up with less functionality than they'd had before. This gave us the perfect opportunity to talk about refactoring vs rebuilding :-)

On the first iteration none of the groups finished all their tasks - many groups didn't even get half of the tasks completed on time. During the second iteration, almost all the groups finished all tasks. Those that didn't finish all the tasks still finished most of them.

A couple of the groups got a little too serious at times and had to be reminded that they were supposed to be having fun :-)

There were a lot of good questions at the end and a lot of positive feedback.

At the beginning of the night, we asked a few poll questions. More than half the audience had heard of XP before getting the schedule for this meeting and almost a quarter of the audience claimed to have done XP before. I'm somewhat sceptical that all those people are doing "full" XP but clearly they're doing some part of it. -- MikeBowler

I attended and had a great time. Thanks guys! The venue could have been better for an ExtremeHour, but the group was very enthusiastic. I'm thinking of trying an ExtremeHour at work, since one of our project managers also attended and enjoyed it very much. -- RobHarwood

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Jan 30, 2001 - TorontoXpUsersGroup

We ran the ExtremeHour with 7 people from the TorontoXpUsersGroup. The project was "a device to make coffee". We used the following format, with explanation between steps.

1. Customer provides stories
2. Customer provides priorities for all stories where priorities are 1=Must have, 2=Costly to lose, 3=Nice to have. Developers provide high level estimates in minutes
3. Customer chooses which stories will go in this iteration based on the high level estimates
4. Developers split stories into tasks. Developers provide detailed estimates on tasks.
5. Developers draw tasks one at a time, refactoring as needed. Customers write functional tests and pass them off to the developers as each is finished.
6. Developers demo the system to the customer.
7. Developers calculate velocity and determine how many ideal minutes can be completed in the next iteration.

We ran through two iterations.

In addition to the "product", all stories, tasks and functional tests were written on whiteboards. In retrospect, cards would have been a better format for the stories, tasks and tests. The whiteboard worked well for drawing the product.

-- MikeBowler