It’s your first day working as a developer with a company that creates software that deals with medical records. You’ve been getting settled in your new office space and notice that the team is spread out across two large rooms, and everyone has their own cubicles with tall partitions. The common walls in the area feature colorful art but are otherwise bare. You can’t see or clearly hear anyone else on your team. How might this arrangement impact collaboration for a team using XP practices?
XP teams should be co-located to allow for frequent and easy conversations during software development (see the Sit Together practice). Information radiators are part of an Informative Workspace–items like narratives, user stories, progress indicators–help the team perform better.
