One of the principles for extreme programming is metaphor. As a way to simplify how your team visualizes the project, you need a metaphor. This is a real tricky one, I’ve heard of teams using sandwich, assembly lines, containers or whatever as metaphors. What I can’t understand is how a metaphor or analogy helps a team latch onto a common solution.

In my experiences I like to refer to creating a common story as a vision. For me, vision is a good metaphor (ha, I couldn’t resist) because it describes the actual process I use to keep everyone straight. I keep everyone straight by keeping myself straight. I do this through a model of the solution I build in my mind, a vision of the solution or execution plan. Whenever I meet with my development team, I consistently refer to my mental vision to orient my agenda, my answers, and my requests. This consistency provides the anchor for the team to innovate around. All innovation is good as long as we can tie it into the vision.

This vision becomes even more powerful if I can recreate this model in the teams minds. If they share the model, then we can truly unleash our collective creative forces. This challenge is the role I believe the metaphor must fulfill. It is a tool to help me transfer my mental model of the solution to my entire team. If I can effective complete this transfer, then I feel confident that the team will deliver the solution needed.

I have learned that one of the most effective tools in transferring complex models is through the use of stories or story boards. In fact if you recall, user stories is the tool XP uses to capture the interaction between the user and the solution we will build. So why shouldn’t we also use a type of story for the project lead to communicate the process and intracies of building that solution to the project team?

I’ve never tried to identify a metaphor for the systems where I have lead the development, but I have used my internal vision and the storied I relate to communicate that vision. My challenge now is to do what I have always done, but to add on the final act of condensing my vision into a metaphor. In fact, I already have most of my internal model built, just now I need to write the stories to bring that model to life and finish with a summary of those stories in the form of a metaphor.