Learning Capabilities

But not everyone on a team will be able to spot particularly potent smells, or even know what to do with them once they are spotted. There is a capability issue here.

What if a system was originally designed to let Java directly output HTML, but it is clear to a few programmers that this approach is far from ideal? And what if no programmer on the team knows how XSLT could replace the Java/HTML code to radically simplify the system? Well, given the burdensome nature of this Java/HTML code, the team might try to refactor it a few times. But if they don't come up with an entirely new approach, the code will continue to be a burden.

OK, what if one person on the team does happen to know about XSLT? Then the team has a chance to greatly simplify their system. But how did this one person know XSLT? Perhaps this person is a continuous learner, someone who regularly reads industry magazines to stay up on new technology developments. It's a good thing for the team that at least one person happens to be a continuous learner.

But this is certainly far from optimal. I want teams to continuously learn because doing so will help them produce simpler systems, faster than ever. Peter Senge, author of the profoundly important, best-selling book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization, had this to say about team learning.

Most of us at one time or another have been part of a great "team," a group of people who functioned together in an extraordinary way who trusted one another, who complemented each others' strengths and compensated for each others' limitations, who had common goals that were larger than individual goals, and who produced extraordinary results. I have met many people who have experienced this sort of profound teamwork in sports, or in the performing arts, or in business. Many say that they have spent much of their life looking for that experience again. What they experienced was a learning organization. The team that became great didn't start off great it learned how to produce extraordinary results. [Senge1990]

The two most powerful learning tools that I suggest for use by XP teams to support the practice of continuous learning are study groups and retrospectives.