Xanpan: Team Centric Agile Software Development

by Allan Kelly

Xanpan is...a cross between XP and Kanban...is an example of a roll-your-own method...is distilled from Allan Kelly’s own experiences running development teams and then helping multiple teams adopt Agile working methods and practices.

Xanpan draws ideas from Kanban and Lean, XP and Scrum, product management and business analysis, and many other places.

Allan tells the Xanpan story through a series of boards which tell the story of different teams.

In between he fills in the principles, practices, and thinking which together constitutes Xanpan. Allan's key points Handling planned and unplanned work in fixed length iterations, the importance of keeping quality high with technical practices, planning beyond the iteration and why deadlines are more important than estimates.

Audible Audio

First published October 1, 2013

About the author

Allan Kelly has held just about every job in the software world, from system admin to development manager by way of programmer and product manager. Today he works helping teams adopt and deepen Agile practices, and writing far too much. He specialises in working with software product companies and aligning products and processes with company strategy.

He is the author of three books: "Xanpan - reflections on agile and software development" (https://leanpub.com/xanpan), "Business Patterns for Software Developers" and “Changing Software Development: Learning to be Agile”; the originator of Retrospective Dialogue Sheets (http://www.dialoguesheets.com), a regular conference speaker and frequent contributor to journals.

More about Allan at http://www.allankelly.net and on Twitter as @allankellynet (http://twitter.com/allankellynet).

Reviews

[Nathalie Karasek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had this book on my reading list for years now but somehow I never came to read it :-/ … recently I discovered the audible version and finally got to it *yeah*! :-D The book gives good hands on advice about how to make agile work beyond following the strict concept of sprints and scrum. I like the book cause it summarises a lot of things that I observed teams doing (or struggling with) during my work as Scrum Master and Agile Coach regarding sprints and iterations. I also like that it inspires the listener/reader by offering various options what to do … although I do not agree with all of them ;-). I would recommend this book to you, if you are rather new to agile/scrum, and if your team sees some value in the heartbeat, that a sprint or iteration provides, but feels that the practices of scrum, sprint goal and/or committment are too rigid. The Xanpan approach takes the structures of scrum, iterations and offers more flexible practices that can be adopted according to the needs of the team. Nice book.

[James D · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the content is useful and I like the ethos/approach and have adopted large parts of it - so in that sense a very valuable read - but I don't think it's particularly well written, and there are lots of typos.

[Sebastian Gebski · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, it's rather a waste of time - at least for someone who knows basics of Scrum, Kanban, XP & can add 2 to 2. Book isn't really revealing - it mixes the basics of the mentioned methods in rather obvious, unsurprising way:
* takes roles, ceremonies & cadence from Scrum
* takes WIP limit, Kanban board & smooth task flow from Kanban
* takes technical excellence practices from XP

Yawn. Nothing interesting here, move along.
It's not that the content is useless - it just feels like not much more than a copy'n'paste from mentioned methods.

[Johnny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m using Kanban for years and the combination of XP with Kanban that forms Xanpan is a great idea. Allan Kelly explains the problem around Scrum and how Xanpan solves them. The examples he uses are simple to follow and can be applied without much work. If you have many unplanned tasks or when your tasks don’t fit into a sprint then you should read this explanation of Xanpan.

[André Gomes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lot's of good advice for agile teams! I really liked the combination of good practices from different methods and the practical approach of the book. Recommended.