Book description
Agile principles have been a breath of fresh air to many development teams stuck in the middle of a rigid, process-driven environment. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to bring Agile into an existing organization with established people and practices. Becoming Agile shows you practical techniques and strategies to move from your existing process to an Agile process without starting from scratch.
About the Technology
About the Book
Many books discuss Agile from a theoretical or academic perspective. Becoming Agile takes a different approach and focuses on explaining Agile from a ground-level point-of-view. Author Greg Smith, a certified ScrumMaster with dozens of Agile projects under his belt, presents Agile principles in the context of a case study that flows throughout the book.
Becoming Agile focuses on the importance of adapting Agile principles to the realities of your environment. While Agile purists have often discouraged a "partial-Agile" approach, the reality is that in many shops a "purist" approach simply isn't a viable option. Over the last few years, Agile authorities have begun to discover that the best deployments of Agile are often customized to the specific situation of a given company.
As well, Becoming Agile addresses 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 will show you how to create a custom Agile process that supports the realities of your environment. The process will minimize risk as you transition to Agile iteratively, allowing time for your culture and processes to acclimate to Agile principles.
What's Inside
- How to migrate to Agile
- How to get your team to buy into the change
- How to scale and sustain your new Agile process
- How to create an Agile process that works for your company
- How to use Agile in special situations
- How to iteratively build up your Agile process and culture
About the Reader
About the Authors
Greg Smith is a certified ScrumMaster and a Senior Project Manager. Greg is also an instructor of Agile Project Management at Bellevue Community College. Greg has over 20 years of experience as a development manager, project manager, business analyst, and product manager. He has worked for large conglomerates, tiny start-ups, and medium size companies including: Philips Electronics, R.R. Donnelley, Oh Boy! Oberto, and the Seattle Times New Media group. Greg helps companies create a custom agile process that supports the realities of their environment. Greg's focus has been on iteratively migrating a company to agile and actively involving the development team in the process. This background has given him insight into what it takes to sustain an agile culture and process over time.
Dr. Ahmed Sidky guides organizations during their transition to agile software development. His research includes a value-based agile measurement index, known as the Sidky Agile Measurement Index, and a process framework for the adoption of agile practices. Dr. Sidky developed Dr. Agile (www.dragile.com), an online readiness assessment tool that helps guide organizations aspiring to adopt agile practices. He has worked as a software developer at some of the largest software firms in the Middle East and holds a Masters degree in Software Engineering from Virginia Tech (USA) with a research focus on Requirements Engineering and a doctorate in Agile Software Development Methodologies and Process Improvement. Dr. Sidky is a frequent speaker at international agile conferences.
Quotes
A thoughtful, practical set of steps ... to become agile.
- Mary Poppendieck, author of the Foreword
Makes agility rhyme with reality.
- Valentin Crettaz, Consulthys
This book is a necessity for teams looking to become agile...
- Randy Miller, Microsoft
The first book I can give to anyone on an agile team, regardless of their role.
- Paul King, ASERT
A 5-star guide.
- Robert Dempsey, Atlantic Dominion Solutions
Table of contents
- Copyright
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- About this book
- About the cover illustration
- I. Agile fundamentals and a supporting case study
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II. Getting started
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3. Are you ready for agile?
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3.1. What areas will you become more agile in?
- 3.1.1. Increasing customer involvement
- 3.1.2. Improving prioritization of features
- 3.1.3. Increasing team buy-in and involvement
- 3.1.4. Clarifying priorities and reminding everyone of the consequences of changing them
- 3.1.5. Adapting to change during development
- 3.1.6. Better understanding the project's status
- 3.1.7. More efficient planning and estimating
- 3.1.8. Continuous risk management
- 3.1.9. Delivering the project needed at the end
- 3.1.10. Achieving the right level of project structure
- 3.2. The different flavors of agile
- 3.3. Create your own flavor to become agile within your constraints
- 3.4. Key points to remember
- 3.5. Looking ahead
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3.1. What areas will you become more agile in?
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4. The fitness test: all about readiness assessments
- 4.1. The importance of readiness assessments
- 4.2. Reducing the risks of agile adoption using assessments
- 4.3. Increasing productivity during transitions
- 4.4. Getting executive buy-in for agile adoption using readiness assessments
- 4.5. Conducting readiness assessments
- 4.6. Key points
- 4.7. Looking ahead
- 5. The importance of obtaining executive support
- 6. Improving buy-in by creating a core team
- 7. The mindset of an agile leader
- 8. Injecting agility into your current process
- 9. Selecting a pilot project
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3. Are you ready for agile?
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III. Kicking off
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10. Feasibility: is this project viable?
- 10.1. Feasibility in the big picture
- 10.2. Selecting a feasibility team
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10.3. Introducing the known requirements to the feasibility team
- 10.3.1. What does a feasibility investigation look like?
- 10.3.2. Analyzing an idea with the Feasibility Discussion Guide
- 10.3.3. Feedback from the Acme Media feasibility team
- 10.3.4. Modifying the idea during feasibility analysis
- 10.3.5. Reacting to the feedback
- 10.3.6. Team review of the modified concept
- 10.3.7. Regrouping after technical analysis
- 10.3.8. Summarizing the feasibility work
- 10.4. The go/no go decision
- 10.5. Alternate feasibility paths
- 10.6. Key points
- 10.7. Looking forward
- 11. Aligning the pilot team with the project
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10. Feasibility: is this project viable?
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IV. Populating the product backlog
- 12. Feature cards: a tool for "just enough" planning
- 13. Prioritizing the backlog
- 14. Estimating at the right level with the right people
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V. Enough information for scheduling
- 15. Release planning: envisioning the overall schedule
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16. Iteration planning: the nitty-gritty details
- 16.1. Clearly defining the goals: what is "feature complete"?
- 16.2. Using feature modeling to identify and estimate tasks
- 16.3. Identifying and estimating tasks
- 16.4. Determining the hours available in an iteration
- 16.5. Bringing estimates and capacity together to complete the plan
- 16.6. Making status visible
- 16.7. Key points
- 16.8. Looking forward
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VI. Building the product
- 17. Start your engines: iteration 0
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18. Delivering working software
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18.1. Supporting the agile principles during development and testing
- 18.1.1. Satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software
- 18.1.2. Have business people and developers work together daily throughout the project
- 18.1.3. Whenever possible, communicate face to face
- 18.1.4. Pay attention to technical excellence and good design
- 18.1.5. Focus on simplicity and the art of maximizing the amount of work not done
- 18.1.6. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development
- 18.1.7. Test early, and test often
- 18.1.8. Continuously integrate code changes
- 18.1.9. Obtain customer feedback as early as possible
- 18.1.10. Minimize team distractions during development iterations
- 18.2. Where to begin?
- 18.3. Completing a feature
- 18.4. Key points
- 18.5. Looking forward
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18.1. Supporting the agile principles during development and testing
- 19. Testing: did you do it right?
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VII. Embracing change
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20. Adapting: reacting positively to change
- 20.1. Common reasons for adapting
- 20.2. Adapting during an iteration
- 20.3. Three ways Acme Media adapted during its first iteration
- 20.4. Adapting at the end of an iteration
- 20.5. How Acme Media adapts during adapt week
- 20.6. User Acceptance Testing
- 20.7. Changes in the business climate
- 20.8. Reviewing the findings and revising the plan for the next iteration
- 20.9. Key points
- 20.10. Looking forward
- 21. Delivery: bringing it all together
- 22. The retrospective: working together to improve
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20. Adapting: reacting positively to change
- VIII. Moving forward
- A. Readiness assessment tables by practice
- B. Agile concepts from a phase perspective
- C. Agile process overview in text
- D. Example: determining process and document needs for a project
- E. Quantitative feedback on the SAMI
- Resources
Product information
- Title: Becoming Agile
- Author(s):
- Release date: May 2009
- Publisher(s): Manning Publications
- ISBN: 9781933988252
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