by: Thomas Meloche

The Engine Room 

The engine room of a large ship is an amazing site. It is also an incredible example of mechanical and process engineering. A working engine room feels like the living heart and soul of a ship. I was thinking of the analogy of a working engine room while observing an XP team. The team was amazing; it had grown to over 34 people, had run for over a year, and was humming like a well-tuned engine. The biggest problem I could see, as I looked at the company and its' business as a whole, is that it wasn't clear if I was in the engine room of the Queen Mary or the Titanic.

Business Reality

An effective development organization can deliver on time, on spec and on budget and still fail. The perfect engine room still went down with the Titanic. It isn't fair, I know, but it is true. The Titanic's engine room sits at the bottom of the Atlantic not because of its problems but because of problems in the pilothouse.

Think of icebergs as business reality.  Icebergs may come in all sorts and sizes:

• Wrong product vision

• Lack of executive management support

• Unrealistic expectations

• Unusable products

• Surprise competitive announcements

• Mergers and acquisitions

Any one of these problems may sink your ship, even if the development team is functioning as a well-tuned engine.  Alone, a well-tuned engine room isn't enough. 

Steering the Ship

A good development process helps projects avoid striking icebergs by giving pilots better control of the ship. However, the pilot still has to steer the ship successfully. Pilots may take ships on zig-zag courses rapidly across multiple oceans, daring an iceberg to get in the way. Of course, this is probably not a good thing.

Iterative and Incremental Development

Those of us who have been doing real Iterative and Incremental development know that it provides incredible control of the ship. However, control over the ship should not be confused with knowing how to set the correct speed and direction of the ship. The pilot of the Titanic had excellent control of the Titanic's speed and direction. And then deftly sailed it with great haste into an iceberg. 

Successful Projects

Successful projects keep their eyes firmly on the ocean in front of them: the competitive, business and political environment in which they run. They do this by hiring non-developers in the rolls of analysts, marketers, usability engineers, writers, interface designers, etc. to work with the sponsors, customers and users. 

These individuals are not a part of the engine room they are a part of the pilothouse. They are part of two additional teams we call "The Voice of the Customer" and "The Voice of the User." These two teams determine the ultimate success or failure of the voyage, not the development team.  

Critical Roll of XP

So, how critical is a strong development process such as XP? Extremely critical. A great ship needs a great engine room. And a great engine room gives the pilothouse the speed and power it needs to direct the ship. The ship is worthless without a working engine room. But the engine room doesn't steer the ship, it responds to directions.

Teaching those in the pilothouse how to properly steer the ship is a significant task. A task we are dedicated to at The Menlo Institute. A task worthy of the Queen Mary.

Not to mention the Titanic.

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