Changing Software Development: Learning to Become Agile

1.10. The Organization of the Book

By now, I hope you have a good idea of what this book is going to talk about. We will return to several key points:

• In the modern economy, knowledge is key to all business activities; knowledge can give your business competitive advantage and greater profits.

• Software development is a knowledge-based industry and the workers are knowledge workers.

• Knowledge results from learning and acting on that learning, which involves change.

• Without change we can't capitalize on what we learn, and without change we can't continue our learning.

• Agile methods are rooted in organizational learning; in order to become Agile, we must change the way in which we do things – in order to stay Agile and improve further, we must learn.

Figure 1.2 shows graphically the philosophy behind this book, with learning at the heart. Initially, we start by seeding and motivating learning: most good software developers are eager learners. Frustration sets in when barriers are encountered. Many of these barriers come from implicit assumptions and the team environment: recognizing these assumptions speeds up and improves the learning process. Active learning leads to and requires change: this change then creates learning, so establishing a virtuous circle of improvement. The alternative is a vicious circle of decay, in which learning without change leads to frustration and delay.

Figure 1.2. The philosophy of the book.

Once we're learning and changing, we need to keep doing it. ...