There is abundant emerging evidence that the Waterfall approach to software development, by its very design, predictably leads to project failures, especially failures late in the project. For a summary, see this review of one our favorite books on Agile approaches.

What would it save you to achieve 100% project success rates? For a summary of the business case for the adoption of Agile methods like XP, see this article.

Many of us have long awaited a viable alternative to waterfall, and in the late 90s, several began to appear. The Agile Methods movement began to produce several new software development processes that deliver more business value more reliably. Among them, we at Adaption believe that XP is the most agile.

Well-run XP projects come in on-time and on-budget, delivering the features that customers really want. Good XP teams deliver extensible, nearly defect-free code. XP teams are themselves more capable and flexible, and have higher morale. For summaries of how the main Agile practices of XP yield project success, read this article.

XP raises expectations and changes the rules of software development. XP is here to stay. Whether you are a programmer, manager, project manager, testing specialist, or other stakeholder, it's worth your while to learn all you can about this revolution in software development.

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