Chapter 7. Working in Iterations

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Web projects are traditionally done in waterfall style with define, design, develop, and deploy stages each taking months. These projects can be done more effectively and with less risk following short iterations of a couple of weeks.

An iteration formally starts when the customer signs an iteration plan. This document is both a schedule of the iteration and a detailed description of the deliverables, including the acceptance criteria that the deliverables need to achieve. The plan should not be long or overly detailed. The customer reviews and signs it prior to the beginning of any work.

Successful projects are determined in the first three to five iterations. These iterations are where we need to achieve the following goals:

• Set up the development environment

• Get the team working as a single productive unit

• Get the customer comfortable with the XP process

• Explore the major risks of the project

The largest fundamental difference between software projects and Web projects is that in Web projects there is a distinct order of operations. To see how this affects Web XP projects and the iterative process, we need to take a closer look at

• Stories and deliverables

• The iteration strategy session

• Iteration planning and estimating

• Iteration 1: preparing for development

• Iteration 2: avoiding risk

• Iteration 3: spikes

• The iterations ahead

I l @ ve RuBoard