Toward a Framework for Evaluating Extreme Programming

Software organizations are progressively adopting the development practices associated with the extreme programming (XP) methodology. Most reports on the efficacy of these practices are anecdotal. This paper provides a benchmark measurement framework for researchers and practitioners to express concretely the XP practices the organization has selected to adopt and/or modify, and the outcome thereof. The framework enables the necessary meta-analysis for combining families of case studies. The results of running framework-based case studies in various contexts will eventually constitute a body of knowledge of systematic, empirical evaluations of XP and its practices. Additionally, this benchmark provides a baseline framework that can be adapted for industrial case studies of other technologies and processes. To provide a foundation on the use of the framework, we present the initial validation of our XP evaluation framework based upon a year-long study of an IBM team that adopted a subset of XP practices.