Xp Documentary Pitch

The pitch for the XpDocumentary should be something that prompts someone to ask more about the project.

The draft pitch:

: "A documentary film being shaped by the XP community"
: The way software gets created is constantly maturing. At the forefront of technique and discipline is eXtreme Programming. It's about balancing the desired goal with details necessary for getting there.
: This documentary explores eXtreme Programming through perspectives from executive officers concerned over the bottom line, engineering management keeping projects on schedule and within budget, software developers in the trenches and customers getting products they expect.
: Rather than being a tutorial, this is to inform a non-technical and technical audience of executives and stock analysts, managers and contract agencies, engineers and support staff, plus customers and the interested public. Developers interested in or already utilizing eXtreme Programming should gain new insight.
: The subject is treated objectively. Advocates and experts within the eXtreme Programming community as well as their counterparts practicing other methodologies present views and material.
: It has yet to become mainstream. Right now, it's cutting-edge. Although considered successful by many, critics still have valuable contributions to make.

Feedback:

For those who saw the very first draft, note that references to MetaphorsForNontechnicalAudience have been removed. --DanielPezely

Either in the pitch or in the previews (commercial announcements for the show), or in the introduction of the show, there probably needs to be something to the effect of, "No, we're not talking about Microsoft's XP, but eXtreme Programming."

It's about balancing the desired goal with details necessary for getting there.

How about: It's about balancing the FourVariables, time, cost, quality, and scope.

Well, maybe that's not an improvement, but 'balancing the desired goal with details necessary for getting there' doesn't work. It's a mixed metphor for one thing. It's vague for another.

: This documentary explores eXtreme Programming through perspectives from executive officers concerned over the bottom line, engineering management keeping projects on schedule and within budget, software developers in the trenches and customers getting products they expect.

... to ...

: This documentary explores eXtreme Programming through perspectives from the executive officers concerned over the bottom line, to the engineering management keeping projects on schedule and within budget, to the software developers in the trenches, and finally to the customers getting products they expect.

Maybe calling it a 'backgrounder' or 'background piece', to contrast it against being a tutorial.

As a lead-in for the general audience, this might begin the introduction:

: Software is practically everywhere in the modern world: computers controlling your automobile engine, connecting telephone calls, synchronizing traffic lights along an avenue, offering interactivity to CD and DVD players, ensuring accuracy of a hospital's life support equipment and printing your payroll checks-- nearly everyone in developed nations is effected by software. The quality of software is determined by how it gets planned and created.

--DanielPezely