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Chapter 43. Keep Your Options Open: Extr... > Introduction
Introduction
Change: Ally or Enemy?
Kent Beck, during a workshop on XP for capitalists, provoked the audience by proposing that XP could create ten times more value than a heavyweight process. How can this ever be possible? Consider the two fundamental premises of XP.
Change is inevitable. Just about the only thing you can predict with some certainty is that change will happen. In Extreme Programming Explained, Beck emphasizes this point.
Everything in software changes. The requirements change. The design changes. The technology changes. The team changes. The team members change. The problem isn't change per se, because change is going to happen; the problem, rather, is the inability to cope with change when it comes. [Beck2000]
Change is easy. The cost of change does not rise exponentially as the system grows. Contrary to popular belief, the rise in the cost of change gradually diminishes.
We don't question premise A. We take it as a given.
XP is a lightweight methodology for small-to-medium teams developing software in the face of vague or rapidly changing conditions. [Beck2000]
