XP Culture: Why the twelve practices both are and are not the most significant thing

XP emphasises underlying values as well as the more visible twelve practices. In this paper we explore the relationship between practices and values from two perspectives: empirical and theoretical. We present empirical evidence that the twelve practices create a community in which the XP values are supported and sustained. We also present models of culture from other domains which suggest that an alternative set of practices can produce a community with the same underlying values. We conclude that the twelve practices are both significant and not significant. 1. XP practices and values The twelve practices of eXtreme Programming (XP) offer an accessible and apparently straightforward prescription. Each practice is simple to understand and speaks directly to the reality of working life. The very simplicity of the practices contributes to the radical nature of what is proposed. The simplicity is beguiling enough to invite unthinking objections to what is proposed, a fact that was creatively played upon by Scott Adams in the short XP episode in the Dilbert strip in January of 2003. (http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert20030109.html). Together, the twelve practices are seductive: a code by which to live working life. At an OOPSLA 2002 panel [1], the importance of XP's twelve practices was discussed. A number of the panellists (most notably Kent Beck) gave the view that the practices were not important in their own right but rather as a manifestation of an underlying approach. Beck stated "Practices are superficial, there's something deeper". There is considerable wider debate about the twelve practices, and whether all of them are necessary, whether any are missing, etc. (e.g. [2]). But there has always been more to XP than the twelve practices. A skim through Beck's seminal text [3] shows that the twelve practices don't even get listed until almost a third of the way through. And even then the chapter headings don't neatly align. A closer reading shows that, before listing the twelve practices, Beck quite explicitly sets out the four values of XP – communication, simplicity, feedback and courage. These four values drive XP since they give rise to a dozen or so principles and it is these principles that are more directly embodied in XP practices. He goes further by suggesting an underlying core value which informs the four, "a deeper value, one that lies below the surface of the other four – respect. If members of a team don't care about each other and what they are doing, XP is doomed." [3, p 35]. Interviewing Beck, Highsmith [4] observes that his "important vision is about changing social contracts, changing the way people treat each other and are treated in organizations" and quotes Beck's response to an article that attempted to revise XP: "I was furious that someone would strip out all of the social change and still call it XP". This emphasis on the importance of the underlying culture as well as technical practice, is not unique to XP within agile methods: Cockburn [5, 6], for example, underscores the importance of culture, as does Highsmith [4]. This wider context of values and culture also raises issues, and at XP2003 there was an explicit panel debate on whether values are more important than practices, or vice versa [7]. Against this backdrop of debate about practices versus values and the importance of culture, we address two questions in this paper: do the twelve practices of XP give rise to a culture that embodies the explicit values of XP? and are these the only practices that can produce such a culture? To answer these questions, we present empirical evidence that the specific twelve practices suggested by Beck do create a community that supports and sustains the four values, and we provide theoretical evidence from other disciplines that alternative practices Proceedings of the Agile Development Conference (ADC’03) 0-7695-2013-8/03 $17.00 © 2003 IEEE can also create a community based on the same values. Hence, we argue that the twelve practices both are and are not the most significant thing. 2. XP Practices Support the Values: empirical