Becoming Agile: …in an imperfect world Review
I must admit, I only heard about Agile development in various magazines and from a few friends in the computer field. I always wanted to learn more about it but never thought I’d have the time to do so. Our company has many departments that probably could use many of the techniques talked about in this book.
If you are considering moving to agile read this book first. It will provide you with a well tested and reasoned approach which will minimize the risk and prepare you for the changes that are required.
The author has provided many of these nuggets and has shown why they are valuable based on his experience. You get the feeling that he has done this before and is providing his experience in the best spirit of lessons learned as frankly discussed in a retrospective.
There are external links provided to understand the depth of the how to assess readiness for Agile and I found that I needed that information. The topic is covered in chapter 4 and I may have just wanted more. Chapter 7 is excellent because it helps to focus on what (in my case) needs to happen in the leader’s head to be successful. I found that these attitudes were essential to building effective, competent teams that consistently accept ownership of results. These attitudes are the keys, not the full list of what is required. What is important to me is that the chapter provides the short list, the ruler against which others are measured.
If only more of my customers and technical counterparts adopted the concepts detailed within this book — and basically rethink how projects should be approached and retool their own methods — If this had happened more projects would have finished successfully and the team would’ve been better prepared to deal with issues as they were identified.
A brief rundown of some of the more important topics (in my opinion) in this book:
Section 1.1.2 – The agile principles
Section 1.2 – A paradigm shift from a plan-driven mentality
Section 2.4 – What does it look like when a team “becomes agile”
Section 3.2 – The different flavors of agile
Section 3.3 – Create your own flavor to become agile within your constraints
Chapter 4 – The fitness test: all about readiness assessments
Section 7.3 – Creating a team with an agile mindset
Chapter 8 – Injecting agility into your current process
Chapter 13 – Prioritizing the backlog
Chapter 14 – Estimating at the right level with the right people
What sets this book apart is that it doesn’t pretend that just by reading a book or two you’ll be ready to Scrum your way to process nirvana. Instead, it is very realistic in its presentation of the challenges of implementing an agile methodology successfully. It describes the need to obtain buy-in from key stakeholders (esp. the people who control the purse strings), managers, developers, analysts, QA. It describes migrating to a new methodology as a process in itself and advises beginning with an evaluation of your current methodology to determine what to throw away, improve, or keep.
A great book and must buy!
Becoming Agile: …in an imperfect world Feature
Becoming Agile: …in an imperfect world Overview
Many books discuss Agile from a theoretical or academic perspective. Becoming Agile takes a different approach and focuses on explaining Agile from a case-study perspective. Agile principles are discussed, explained, and then demonstrated in the context of a case study that flows throughout the book. The case study is based on a mixture of the author’s real-world experiences.
Becoming Agile also focuses on the importance of adapting Agile principles to the realities of your environment. In the early days of Agile, there was a general belief that Agile had to be used in all phases of a project, and that it had to be used in its purest form. Over the last few years, reputable Agile authorities have begun questioning this belief: We’re finding that the best deployments of Agile are customized to the realities of a given company.
Becoming Agile discusses the cultural realities of deploying Agile and how to deal with the needs of executives, managers, and the development team during migration. The author discusses employee motivation and establishing incentives that reward support of Agile techniques.
Becoming Agile: …in an imperfect world Specifications
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Dec 28, 2009 14:58:09
Available at Amazon ListPrice =$44.99
Available at Amazon OfferPrice =$16.99
Tags : dvd-animation Cheapest Goods thai grocery Cycleops Fluid
Posted by: svcd4ads 
Filled in: 
