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Agile for Everybody

Agile for Everybody

by Matt LeMay
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Release Date: October 2018
ISBN: 9781492033509
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Book Description

The Agile movement provides real, actionable answers to the question that keeps many company leaders awake at night: How do we stay successful in a fast-changing and unpredictable world? Agile has already transformed how modern companies build and deliver software. This practical book demonstrates how entire organizations—from product managers and engineers to marketers and executives—can put Agile to work.

Author Matt LeMay explains Agile in clear, jargon-free terms and provides concrete and actionable steps to help any team put its values and principles into practice. Examples from a wide variety of organizations, including small nonprofits and global financial enterprises, bring to life the on-the-ground realities of Agile across industries and functions.

  • Understand exactly what Agile is and why it matters
  • Use Agile to address your organization’s specific needs and goals
  • Take customer centricity from theory into practice
  • Stop wasting time in "report and critique" meetings and start making better decisions
  • Create a harmonious cycle of learning, collaborating, and delivering
  • Learn from Agile experts at companies like IBM, Spotify, and Coca-Cola

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
    1. My Introduction to Agile: “Twice the Work in Half the Time”
    2. The Alchemy of Agile: Uniting Principles and Practices
    3. Why Agile for Everybody?
    4. Who This Book Is For
    5. How I Wrote This Book
    6. How This Book Is Organized
      1. Agile Guiding Principles (“Why”)
      2. Agile Practice Quick Wins and Deep Dives (“How”)
      3. Success Signals and Warning Signs (“What”)
      4. Your Agile Playbook
    7. Acknowledgments
  2. 1. What Is Agile, and Why Does It Matter?
    1. Understanding Agile as a Movement
    2. Unpacking the Appeal of Agile
    3. Escaping Business as Usual
    4. Agile Versus Waterfall
    5. Agile, Lean, and Design Thinking
    6. Summary: Agile Made Simple (But Not Easy)
  3. 2. Finding Your North Star
    1. Escaping the Frameworks Trap
    2. Making It Count: Establishing Your Goals and Challenges
    3. Making It Your Own: Agile Principles and Values to Drive Change
    4. Summary: Agile Beyond the Frameworks Trap
  4. 3. Agile Means That We Start with Our Customers
    1. Escaping the First Law of Organizational Gravity
    2. Seeing Speed from the Customer’s Point of View
    3. Beyond “Working Software”
    4. Agile Practice Deep Dive: Working in Sprints
    5. Quick Wins to Put This Principle into Practice
      1. You Might Be on the Right Track If:
      2. You Might Be Going Astray If:
    6. Summary: Customers First!
  5. 4. Agile Means That We Collaborate Early and Often
    1. Escaping the Second Law of Organizational Gravity
    2. Moving from a Report and Critique Culture to a Collaborative Culture
    3. The Room Where It Happens
    4. Making Connections to “Scout and Scale”
    5. Agile Practice Deep Dive: The Daily Stand-Up
    6. Quick Wins to Put This Principle into Practice
      1. You Might Be on the Right Track If:
      2. You Might Be Going Astray If:
    7. Summary: Building a Culture of Collaboration
  6. 5. Agile Means That We Plan for Uncertainty
    1. Escaping the Third Law of Organizational Gravity
    2. The Paradox of Agile: Using Structure to Achieve Flexibility
    3. The Double-Edged Sword of Experimentation
    4. Agile Is Uncertain, Too
    5. Agile Practice Deep Dive: The Retrospective
    6. Quick Wins to Put This Principle into Practice
      1. You Might Be on the Right Track If:
      2. You Might Be Going Astray If:
    7. Summary: Change Is Good, If You Want It
  7. 6. Agile Means That We Follow All Three of These Guiding Principles to Be Fast, Flexible, and Customer-First
    1. Leadership in the Agile Organization
    2. Scaling Agile Across Teams and Functions
    3. A Story to Bring It All Together: Enterprise Design Thinking at IBM
    4. Agile Practice Deep Dive: WHPI (Why, How, Prototype, Iterate)
      1. Step 1: Why
      2. Step 2: How
      3. Step 3: Prototype
      4. Step 4: Iterate
      5. Some Notes on WHPI in Practice
    5. Quick Wins to Put These Principles into Practice
      1. You Might Be on the Right Track If:
      2. You Might Be Going Astray If:
    6. Summary: Bringing It All Together
  8. 7. Your Agile Playbook
    1. Step 1: Setting Your Context
    2. Step 2: Creating Your North Star
    3. Step 3: Committing to a First Step, Measuring Success
    4. Step 4: Now It’s Up to You!
    5. Summary: Say Something, Do Something!
    6. Conclusion
      1. Rediscovering the Human Heart of the Agile Movement
  9. A. Contributors
  10. B. Continued Reading
  11. Index