All of the practices that make up XP come from somewhere else. XP itself was an evolution of the practices Kent Beck was using at the time he was working the Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation project. The term Extreme Programming referred to the idea of taking a certain set of practices which worked really well, and doing them all, together, all the time, to the exclusion of anything else. Thus taking the things that work and pushing them to the extreme.

XP may sound a bit… well, extreme. However, I find that when people understand the meaning of the term they are less likely to object to it.

I was on the XP list back in 2002/2003. As for zealotry I plead the Fifth.

http://blog.magenic.com/blogs/aarone/archive/2008/11/19/Pair-Programming-_2D00_-Marketing-FAIL.aspx

He recommends rebranding XP “Collaborative Programming”. I like this suggestion. I’m not sure that covers all the bases, but it’s a start. The problem is that are a lot of books and web pages are that use “XP” and “extreme” and other words that don’t sell well, and people will be suspicious of a sudden rebranding. But I think it has to be done, slowly but surely.

What I need is a way to say, “this minimal set of practices that work very well together. Not necessarily to the exclusion of anything else, but at least these.” To those familiar with XP it implies a certain set of inclusive practices. If you remove any of them it is no longer XP.

What I don’t like about the “Scrum with Engineering Practices” idea, as I have commented on my own blog, is the idea that the practices are individually and collectively optional. This leads to the idea that I can have absolutely no technical discipline at all and still call what I am doing scrum (After all, we have daily meetings.) Or, that I can introduce certain practices that I like and leave out the others. The problem being that unless I have used these practices together there is a good chance that I don’t really know what I can/should get out of them.

So, I want a way to say, “We do all these things, all the time. We *do not* merely do some of these things, some of the time.” How do I say that? In two letters or less :-D