Refectoring Understanding

It is nice when understanding starts to fall into place...

Today, we had a meeting discussing the initiation of a project. One of the items raised is that we need a Technical Discussion White paper to explore the technical issues involved in the development.

I'm an XP novice, but that just didn't sit well with me. The meeting wasn't focusing on this only and basically I just disagreed with the need for this and declared that I'd take the discussion off line.

The person I needed to talk to wasn't available after the meeting, but that didn't stop me from mulling over this and discussing it with others.

My main and first point was that I felt that we didn't need the document. This was countered by several points:

1. Communications - After further investigation, this appeared to be for the benefit of the technical team. My counter - If it is only for the tech team and the tech team is doing this together, why the need for further communication of things that are already known.
2. Commitment / Clarity - What two people may say one day will not be repeated the next. My counter - what we say tomorrow is a reflection of our growing understanding of the domain/problem/issue. Our understanding (and communication?) is dynamic. The document is a snapshot. Countered by the document can be updated to reflect this understand to which I said I've never seen a document be updated in this way. Documents will only ever be an artifact of something that occurred in the past.
   

There were probably a few other points, which I don't remember off the top of my head. But in the end, I took the position of questioning what value the document was giving to the project. I'm happy if there is good value and not happy if it is bloated or redundant. I'm learning barely sufficient. If it is needed, I'm happy writing the document.

Anyway, after this as the ideas collided in my head and came to a rest in new and better ways, it dawned on me that questioning value was important, not just in this particular point, but in all points within the process. Sounds obvious to me on restating the thought, but at the time if felt like the clouds had parted and the sun was shining down on me. 8)

The point is we, as a company, should only be doing just those things that return a value and not those things that are routine or comfortable or because that's what we've always done. XP is about delivering value as quick as possible, it's not about living in a comfort zone. I think I'm now ready to get uncomfortable, and maybe that is my real realization.