Everything you want to know about Agile

by Jamie Lynn Cooke

Released April 2012

Publisher(s): IT Governance Publishing

ISBN: 9781849283366

Start your free trial

Book description

Deliver exceptional results from your IT department using Agile approaches. This book will show you how.

The bottom line:

Everything you want to know about Agile comprehensively addresses the issues that IT departments face when they try to implement Agile approaches within the constraints of their traditional organizations, including existing project frameworks, budgeting structures, contracts and corporate reporting. It is an essential resource for IT departments that want to deliver successful Agile results, even in the most challenging environments.

Making Agile work in your organization:

The author, Jamie Lynn Cooke, explains the motivation for writing this book, 'When I go to Agile industry events, I find that attendees tend to fall into two camps: The people who are actively using Agile approaches and who want to make them even more effective; and the people who are frustrated because there are too many barriers in their organization for Agile to be adopted. Everything you want to know about Agile was written for the frustrated people. (Well, really, it was written for their managers.) It is a step-by-step guide for decision-makers to address and overcome the hurdles in Agile adoption within their organizations.'

The book is written specifically to address the challenges of implementing Agile within the unique structures, constraints and culture of your organization. It describes Agile methodologies in clear business language specifically written for business professionals, providing you with the information that you need to:

assess whether Agile is right for your department

select the Agile methodologies and practices that are best suited to your work

successfully implement these approaches in your department, and

monitor and measure the outcomes.

Most importantly, this book gives you a range of strategies for aligning Agile work within the reporting, budgeting, staffing and governance constraints of your organization, which is arguably the biggest challenge.

What others are saying about this book:

"... a superb resource that will allow information and knowledge professionals to succeed during the toughest of times ..."

"... it does a great job of including real world insights, experiences and lessons learned while provided a professional (but still easy to read) insight into the world of Agile ... I found this book excellent and would not hesitate in recommending this ..." Jared Carstensen – Deloitte & Touche

Written for IT decision makers (and those who want to influence them):

Everything you want to know about Agile is written for executives, IT department managers and other senior decision makers, yet is equally valuable for IT project managers, team leaders and management consultants who want to deliver successful Agile results.

If you are an IT professional already familiar with the benefits of Agile, this book can also help you to address management concerns that Agile approaches may not work within the traditional business practices and constraints of your organization.

Agile methodologies and practices have been proven over the past two decades to increase the relevance, quality, flexibility and business value of software solutions. The IT departments of many large and successful organizations (including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and BT) have all delivered productivity gains through the adoption of Agile approaches. It worked for them, but will it work for you?

Buy this book and start delivering results from today.