Project Chartering for Self-Organizing Teams

by Diana Larsen

Marcella, a product manager, has noticed a growing interest in using Extreme Programming (XP) practices among the developers in her company. People are curious; they talk about refactoring, test-driven development, and pair programming. They talk about simplicity, iterative delivery, and being close to the customer. Marcella has read some articles and scanned some books on XP and other agile methods, and she can see potential advantages for her projects. She is also worried. As far as she can tell, a change to XP includes movement toward a project team that is largely self-organizing, working out its own architecture and design, its own schedule, and its own kinks. If the team is making its own decisions, how does Marcella maintain the direction and oversight she needs as reassurance that things are on track? When the buck stops with her, how can she maintain control of her projects?