The most important resource that any engineering manager has is the time of his engineers. Heavyweight processes consume that time with work that is tangential to the project. XP directs and focuses that time onto the software, where it belongs. XP does this by eliminating unnecessary meetings, documents, reviews, etc. Rather than having engineers produce and review a nearly endless stream of documents that specify the project to be built in gradual increments of ever increasing detail, XP has the engineers work together to produce software in a steady stream of demonstrable increments.
Stakeholders see the software come to life before their eyes.
Every week or so a new release with more features is available for them to use and comment upon. But XP does not abandon analysis and design while producing these increments. Indeed, XP puts a premium on both analysis and design. The analysis documentation is kept as simple as possible, in the form of user stories written in plain language and continuously reviewed by the stakeholders. The design documentation is maintained by the engineers within the code.