Stories in Extreme Programming

It is just recently that I have been introduced into the world of Extreme Programming. Once I was exposed during the Spring semester in Dr. Downing's Object-Oriented Programming class, and now I am really getting to dig deep into what it really means. During the first 8 chapters of Extreme Programming Installed the authors stressed the concept of stories, which are quite literally index cards on which the customer describes the function of small pieces of a focal application, and possibly some implementation.

In my current internship with ARM, this concept has been extremely helpful in encouraging complete and thorough communication between me and the customer, which is actually the "project manager". Basically a two man team, I write all code-related things and he simply communicates what he wants to happen on my whiteboard. He knows exactly what he wants the application to do. He is not a software developer (that's my job!), but it is up to me to interpret the functionality he desires and portray it in the most effective and scale-able  way possible. Everyday, it is a conglomeration of new stories on the whiteboard. Some are trashed, some rewritten, some split up into different stories, and some finished.

I understand it is not quite a stack of index cards like the book suggests, but the idea remains the same. I am not necessarily a hardware guy, and I often struggle with understanding why things need to be done in according to how the story is written, but because my manager so effectively communicated it in the story, I am able to develop and make him and the other users of the software happy.

When I first read the assigned chapters, I found it interesting that I had already been writing stories unknowingly all along. I have also found that when you, the developer, start writing the stories instead of the consumer, things can get hairy fast. You might think you know what the customer/consumer wants, and while you think you know, you'll soon find that stories which are already implemented may have to be trashed pretty quickly. This is why it is important to keep your customers close. Have them right the stories, and development will happen very quickly, or as quick as you say it will.

Happy story-writing!