Extreme89: An XP war game

Abstract

Extreme89 is a simulation game designed to introduce software teams - programmers and customers - to Extreme Programming practices. The game is run by a moderator and lasts 89 minutes - this is the reason why we named it Extreme89. Several teams build-up of customer representative and programmers compete to earn maximum number of points. Teams earn points for delivering properly produced artifacts. Artifacts in the game correspond to software modules delivered to customer in real software projects. Every artifact in the game is assigned a Fibonacci-like function. Manual computing values of the functions performed by the programmers substitutes real programming. Rules of Extreme89 closely correspond to XP practices. The game has two releases while each release is build-up of two increments. Extreme89 with its atmosphere of the competition and time-compressed active lesson of XP was successfully introduced to Computer Science students at Poznan University of Technology. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.