Social behaviors on XP and non-XP teams: a comparative study

This is an ethnographic study of two software development teams within the same organization, one which utilizes the Extreme Programming (XP) methodology and one which does not. This study compares the work routines and work practices of the software developers on the XP team and the non-XP team. Observed behavior suggests that certain features of the XP methodology lead to greater uniformity in work routine and work practice across individual team members. The data also suggest that the XP methodology makes awareness development and maintenance less effortful on a software development team.