Here is an excerpt from an article by Leigh Buchanan for Inc. magazine in which she explains why a handbook originally intended for software programmers, Extreme Programming Explained, is gaining a cult status for its simple leadership ideas. To read the complete article, check out others, and obtain subscription information (two years for only $10), please click here.
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Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change (Second Edition) lacks the alliterative punch of Good to Great or The Effective Executive. But the book–written for coders–has become a kind of management bible.
Kent Beck, who created extreme programming, or XP, as a team-based methodology for producing high-quality software, was surprised to find his ideas embraced by nontechnical managers as well. “People would tell me that their salespeople started to pair up,” says Beck, referring to the XP practice of two coders sharing a single computer.
The book’s profile among nonprogrammers began to surge after a 2005 New Yorker article featured a food company’s attempt to develop a healthful, delicious cookie using XP principles. Want to try it? Here [is the first of ] three XP ideas any start-up can steal.
1. No-Tech Communication. XP prizes simple communication, which in practice means “the least technology possible,” says Beck. At Menlo Innovations, a custom software firm in Ann Arbor, Michigan, every employee in every department communicates with paper, pushpins, yarn, and sticky dots, which they plaster across walls to chart the course of their work.
“In companies, there is so much pain between the business side and the technical side or the front office and production, or management and the line staff,” says Richard Sheridan, Menlo’s co-founder and CEO. “Beck showed us how to break down barriers by creating a common language with the simplest possible tools. Yes, there are technology-based ways to do all this. But this way works better for the humans.”
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Leigh Buchanan is an editor at large for Inc. magazine. A former editor at Harvard Business Review and founding editor of WebMaster magazine, she writes regular columns on leadership and workplace culture. Twitter: @LeighEBuchanan