Foreword

by Kent Beck

This is a dangerous little book.

I first met Pete when I was writing about a software development method I called Extreme Programming. The name was a problem - project managers of the day wouldn’t buy it. But when we began calling it Agile, it sold like hotcakes.

Trouble is, anyone can call anything Agile. The label was what people wanted. Which is why, in recent years, Beth and I have been writing instead about the Forest and the Desert.

Forest cultures have plentiful resources but hidden dangers. You have time to help your colleagues, and they to help you, but, if you stray off the path, thorns and worse await. From the Desert, it’s hard to believe in a Forest. It sounds like a made up story. But from the Forest the assumptions of the Desert seem equally absurd.

Both Forest and Desert do valuable work, both are self-reinforcing, but the Forest builds creative community across an organization in a way that seems like ludicrous luxury in a Desert. So … what makes the difference between the two and how can you change the one into the other?

That’s what this book is about. Here’s my biggest lesson from reading it – to embrace change is the human condition. Anything less is bureaucracy. Bureaucracy may seem everywhere on the rise, even inescapable as wealth and power tighten their grip. But that’s an illusion because wealth and power can only control systems, and all systems are subject to change.

This book is a how-to guide for changing a bureaucratic system into a creative community. Doing so is extreme in the sense I originally meant. The most extreme programming develops the software of human civilization. That’s what makes this book dangerous. And so beautiful to read, it made me cry.

Kent Beck,
February 2025