Programmers are from Mars, customers are from Venus
Angela J. Martin, James Noble, Robert Biddle · 2006
Extreme Programming and other Agile methods have a dedicated customer role that acts as the interface between development teams and their clients, sponsors, and end-users. The customer is critical to agile projects, but there is little research, experience, or advice about effective practices required to fill that role. We present a set of patterns describing the key roles on a customer team, and the practices that enable customers to fill those roles. By adopting these roles and practices, customers and development teams can increase the velocity and reliability of their projects, and ensure all participants in a project, not just the developers, can work at a sustainable pace.