Rating: 
Summary: RIPOFF. AVOID. Rehash of other books.
Review: This was a complete waste of .... First of all, ... for 140 pages is a ripoff, compared to the other XP books in the series which have almost double the pages. Probably they could get away with it because the 2 authors are widely known. Second, this is a subset of whats in Extreme Programming Installed. XP Installed is a great book and explains everything covered in this one and more. This book had about 10 pages of additional information that XP Installed didnt. ... for those 10 pages is pretty expensive. Third, Considering the books short length, its further anoying that almost a third of it was just a rehash of what XP is. The real content of the book was maybe 90 pages, and even that has lots of blank pages, end of chapter white space, etc. Save your money, and dont buy this book. Instead read XP Installed. While this book is fair, its just a ripoff of XP Installed and covers less. Just a quick buck for the two authors cashing in on their names.
Rating: 
Summary: How to project plan an XP project
Review: Very good book for everybody wanting to know how to plan and organize an XP project. Very practical, concise. A must read for anyone involved in XP.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but a few gaps
Review: Well-written and concise. Focuses almost exclusively on the actual programming aspect of a project - not the many other aspects of the project reality like politics, budget issues, users who don't know their business, etc. There is merit in the idea of looking only two weeks into the future at a time to plan - it may curb the feeling of being overwhelmed. My biggest concern is that overall architecture decisions cannot be readily changed as the team steps through the project two weeks at a time and stumbles upon a major "oops". It also appears that the book begins planning after a decent requirements analysis effort has clarified at least the general scope, functionality, system interfaces and need for data conversion or other migration tasks. The features selected for an iteration have to come from somewhere and have some bounds. I liked the idea of a "zero-functionality iteration" to configure and prove the development and test infrastructures. I hope to use that idea on my new project. I also like and hope to use the idea of a plan/build/test/fix increment of about 2-3 weeks in duration. I really think that this approach can enhance the product quality by focusing on the test cases while requirements and code are fresh in the minds of users and developers. The continuous involvement of customers, especially in setting priorities is a very good idea. Of course, you need folks with sufficient vision, knowledge and authority. Does the book suggest that the functional representatives assigned to the project will choose priorities that consider what is most important to those impacted by the project? For example, do the users who have intimate knowledge of salesperson travel expense approval have a clear awareness of the 5-year strategic plan advocated by the IT department, or for that matter, even the strategic vision of their own organization? In summary, a useful book with a scope that excludes the framework issues that can impact on the success of a development project.
Rating:
Summary: Best Commercial Practices
Review: What do you want me to say? This book is but one of a series. It is not a panacea for all your ills. It only talks about developing quality software when you're under the gun. My colleagues agree that these guys put together the best commerical practices of the past 20 years into one adaptive methodology. The cool thing about this is that you don't have to impliment the thing en todo to get the results you want. Find what you like and start there. Overall I found this book a delightful read. The chapters are short, like XP's iteration cycle. Short is sweet when you're an over-worked programmer like me. At first I was underwhelmed by this approach, but it works! The annotated bibliography in the back of this book (and others in this series) helps understand the author better and give you context. This book offers practical advice.
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