Planning...

I gave my copy of Planning Extremem Programming to my manager to read. To my amazement, he returned it to me the next day declaring that he had read it and that he was disappointed. His main gripe was that it was condesending and that it didn't talk about budgets.

First of all, I don't think you can read a book like this in less than 24 hours and get what it is about if you mindset isn't aligned with the subject. I'm committed to the idea of XP, but even then I find that some points miss me. On reflection, I find that this is so because of some old assumptions I have that have been addressed within the book, but that I glazed over them because of my (incorrect in the light of XP) assumptions.

Budgets?!? Isn't that about time? XP can make estimates, whether rough from the onset or more accurate as iterations are started and completed. These estimates can then be put into the "budget equation" and a price estimate falls out the other end. How difficult is that? The main point isn't about budgets really. The real underlying point is about trust. Customers want a fixed price to protect themselves from the developers stupidity. I.e., the customer doesn't trust that the developers have the customer's best interest at heart. It's about social change and not budget and money and bottomline. The change will affect those things, either positively or negatively, but by applying change at the higher level of culture and society within the industry, we get more leverage and control over the whole situation.

And after all this described to the manager and him agreeing with me (at least I think so), he still didn't like the book. C'est la vie...