A Sustainable Work Pace is one that the entire development team can maintain for hour after hour, day after day, month after month. This is typically interpreted as a 40-hour week, but the exact number depends on your corporate and cultural context.

If you can't stay awake, you can't think, and you certainly can't program at an acceptable level of craft. Our industry has deified the programmer that works until the wee hours of the morning, kept partly awake and alive by a diet of pizza, chips, and cola. But it's ridiculous. Nobody can last long that way. It inevitably leads to poor quality work and burnout. It also leads to poor morale and high turnover.

On an XP project, when you've put in a good day you go home, get some rest, and have some fun. That way you can come back the next morning rested, inspired, and ready to work at peak effectiveness. You can keep up the pace indefinitely, and not dread burning out before the project is completed. The result is higher quality code and a predictable, sustained level of output. This is essential to predictable project outcomes. Morale and turnover often improve, too.

[Next Practice]