Ron Jeffries, Ann Anderson, and Chet Hendrickson
Now that most of the programming aspects have been covered, these next 3 chapters look at various other issues in regards to extreme programming. Chapter 16 covers the do's and don'ts of XP. Some of their key recommendations include designing all the time. You should continuously try to make your designs a reality. Focus on communication as it is a key aspect of a successful XP environment. Some of the don'ts include not freezing your requirements before you start coding, designing the whole system before implementing, and don't separate the teams into designers and coders. In the next chapter, they discuss how experience improves estimation. The four rules of estimating are estimate each task you sign up for, estimate the amount of time you will spend working, pay attention to the actual amount of time it took you, and then reflect upon it. This process will allow you to understand your pace and velocity for various tasks. Chapter 18 covers some aspects that deal with your interaction with the customer. It is very important to keep track of scope, resources, quality, and time. Keeping up with these things will give you more leverage if for some reason you fail to meet a deadline, etc.
The first to chapters I felt were almost like a review for what we should of learned from the previous 15 chapters. If you want to understand the essence of XP, you can probably just read chapters 16 and 17. Here they distill XP down into the key aspects you should use when you are programming and estimating. I use agile development where I work. For the most part, it is fairly easy to understand, but I have to be careful when talking to the client and accidentally set a release date that is not realistic. It is much better to give yourself a slight cushion and deliver it early than deliver it late.
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