Conclusion

The metaphor is one of the most important and least understood XP practices. It helps in understanding and naming concepts, and improves communication among developers and with the customer.

In this chapter, I followed this XP practice to explain the difference between traditional predictive software development processes and the new adaptive agile methodologies.

The metaphor was hitting a target, an actual problem in military science and a metaphor for many human activities, including software development.

I described how the more traditional approaches of waterfall and spiral development and the new agile methodologies can be viewed from the perspective of the metaphor, and I examined more deeply the practices of XP from the same perspective.

I hope that I helped the reader better understand the values and practices of this popular new methodology for effectively developing quality software.