The XP Day Review Process

For the last few years XP Day has had an open review process. Anyone who submits a session also becomes a reviewer. Reviews are written on the website, are attributed and can be read by any other submitter/reviewer.

This year, this process had an interesting effect: people started reviewing sessions as soon as they appeared on the site, before the review phase started of the submission process started. This meant that the earlier a presenter submitted a proposal, the more time they had to improve it in response to the reviewers' feedback. Some really interesting sessions were invented on the website as reviewers and presenters bounced ideas back and forth.

Our review process accidentally stumbled onto an essential aspect of Agile software development: the earler you get feedback the more time you have to fix problems.

Maybe next year we shouldn't have a review phase at all. The submission deadline could be just before the meeting when the programme is put together. Presenters could submit as early (or as late) as they wished. The earlier they submitted the more feedback they would get, the more they could improve their submission, and the more they could be involved in the review process. The later they submitted the less feedback they would get but also the less reviews they would be able to write, which would count against their submission.

Copyright © 2007 Nat Pryce. Posted 2007-10-25. Share it.