Does using Extreme Programming have a negative impact on your ability to win new customers?

Question

I've recently been looking at Extreme Programming and wondering if it would be realistic to implement it where I work.

My question is, if you're pitching to a potential new client and you tell them that you're using XP, and you explain what their responsibilities are as the customer, are they likely to be put off selecting your company if they've never worked within an XP environment before?

What are peoples experiences of selling XP to a client given that it seems to me to be a very customer intensive software development methodology? The context here is selling medium to large websites to a a wide variety of clients.

Answer 1

I usually try to explain it to my clients in non-technical terms, and focus on the benefits of my business model. With XP, you'll always have a higher degree of communication with your clients. This is always a plus for them. They like to know what's going on. Focus on that. Also, focus on the idea that they are able to discuss business requirements with you as the process moves along, so they don't get tied down into doing something the way they first envisioned it 6 months ago when they didn't really know what they wanted. This will also allow your contracts to extend their lifetimes when your clients get comfortable working with you and want to continue improving their products.

Answer 2

I'm working on a project that uses XP. The weekly meeting with our customer and the outcome of these meetings was that good, that our customer decided do try to implement an 'agile like' process as well. Additionally I think that agile is getting more and more common in IT projects and that more customers are satisfied by the outcome of these projects. So I think that in a couple of years it will be harder to sell a non-agige project than an agile one.