Credibility: Using Boosters

by Laurie Williams

Skeptics can be swayed by credibility boosters. The fact that XP was authored by Kent Beck was meaningful for a percentage of the industry. After all, Beck had already brought the world CRC cards, was very influential with Smalltalk and design patterns, and was a well-known and active figure in the programming language community. XP had more credibility coming from Beck than if it came from John Doe from Anytown, West Virginia. However, Beck and the other 16 consultants had one distinct credibility disadvantage -- they served to gain financially from the adoption of Agile methodologies. At the time, the only way to adopt an Agile methodology was to hire one of them as a trainer or coach or to buy one of their books. Still today, a recent Cutter survey indicates that 17% of Agile transitions are being led by an external coach and 8% by an external training organization.

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Credibility: Using BoostersThu Nov 29 08:12:42 CDT 2007