The Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System was a plan in the Chrysler American Automobile Corporation to redo their payroll computer system. It is also referred to as C3 for short. The Chrysler Corporation is a United States-based automobile manufacturer, since 1998 merged with Daimler_Benz into DaimlerChrysler. ... A small variety of cars, the most popular kind of automobile. ... A corporation is a legal entity (distinct from a natural person) that often has similar rights in law to those of a Civil law systems may refer to corporations as moral persons; they may also go by the name AS (anonymous society) or something similar, depending on language (see below). ... Payroll is one of a series of accounting transactions dealing with the process of paying employees for services rendered, after processing of the various requirements for withholding of money from the employee for payment of payroll taxes, insurance premiums, employee benefits, garnishments and other deductions. ... A computer is a device or machine for processing information according to a program — a compiled list of instructions. ... A system is an assemblage of inter-related elements comprising a unified whole. ...

It is an important piece of history for people who study software engineering because it was referenced in quite a large number of books published about the Extreme Programming style of software engineering. Extreme Programming is also called XP. Software engineering is the profession that creates and maintains software applications by applying technologies and practices from computer science, project management, engineering, application domains, and other fields. ... Extreme Programming (XP) is a method or approach to software engineering and the most popular of several agile software development methodologies. ...

The funny thing is that it's kind of hard to find out good information about the project.

By pieceing together different pieces of information one can come to a basic timeline.

1. C3 started in 1995. It was supposed to do payroll for 87000 people by 1999 [1]
2. About 1 year later Kent Beck was hired to get the thing working. It hadn't printed a single paycheck yet. [1]
3. C3 only ever payed 10,000 people. [1]
4. The 'XP customer', a person central to the XP process, quit due to severe burnout and stress, and couldn't be replaced.
5. Chrysler was bought out by Daimler Benz in 1998. [2]
6. Daimler Chrysler stopped the C3 project in 2000. [1]
7. Frank Gerhart, a manager at the company, tells the XP conference in 2000 that Daimler has de facto banned XP after the ending of C3 [3]
8. Daimler Chrysler started using XP again [2]

Kent Beck is one of the three creators of the agile process extreme programming, and is the author of the books Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns, Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change, ISBN 0-201-61641-6, Test-Driven Development: By Example, ISBN 0-321-14653-0, and Planning Extreme Programming, with...

References

• [XP considered harmful ] (1)
• [usenet thread debating XP and C3] (2)
• [c2 wiki about c3 being cancelled ] (3)

See also

• The 'c2 wiki' - lots of info about C3, in an almost blog-like style from many of those close to it. http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ChryslerComprehensiveCompensation

• Case Study of C3 - lots of basic info, & links to articles

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ses/teaching/ics121/histories/hherela/

• VCAPS a similar project at Ford motor company, that was 'rescued' via XP only to be cancelled later on. http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?VcapsProject