Best Agile Articles Of 2017


Book Description

A collection of essays about agile and agile coaching from leading practitioners in the field. Includes the following authors and their contributions: Pete Behrens Lean Startup has Changed Nothing!; Sonja Blignaut If you want to innovate, don't say so; Melissa Boggs At the Intersection of Culture & Strategy; Zach Bonaker Scrum Guide Sliders; Braz Brandt Agile in Highly Regulated Environments; Maxime Castera What Kids Taught Me About Being Agile; Felipe Castro & Alexandre Freire Kawakamai Transcend the "Feature Factory" Mindset Using Modern Agile and OKR; Mike Cohn Five Lessons I'm Thankful I Learned in My Agile Career; Esther Derby Change Artist Super Powers: Empathy; Bob Galen Agile Coaching: An Awful Truth; Gene Gendel Addressing Problems, Caused by AMMS; You Get What you Ask For: Agile Coaches-"Centaurs"; What Should Agile Leadership Care About?; "Who are the Judges?" Who Decides on Who is Gonna Coach?; Gene Gotimer An Agile Approach to Software Architecture; David Hawks The User Story Needs A Remodel. Here's Why; Chris Hoerée Eco Leadership, A leadership approach for the ecosystems of tomorrow; Rowan Jackson British Airways: A Brilliant Example of How Cost-Cutting Increases Costs; Ivar Jacobsoen & Roly Stimson Escaping Method Prison; Jeremy Jerrell Becoming A Non-technical Scrum Master; Ron Jeffries Implications of Enterprise Focus in Scrum; Betsy Kaufmann Does Your Coaching Build Roadblocks Instead of Relationships?; Jason Knight Myth: Scrum Events Take Too Much Time; Klaus Leopold WIP Limits Must Die; John Looney Engineering a Culture of Psychological Safety; Yi Lv Seeing the system dynamic: 1 vs. n product backlogs; Nirmaljeet Malhorta Why the idea of a scrum team is so powerful; Ian Mitchell 20 Unagile Things to Avoid Saying and Some Better Alternatives; Chris Murman What Can You Do About Organizational Silence?; Dave Nicolette Zombie Scrum; Stephanie Ockerman 4 Ways to Coach with the Scrum Values; Tim Ottinger Feeling Safe?; Barry Overeem Myth 8: The Scrum Master is a Junior Agile Coach; Niels Pflaeging Change is more like adding milk to coffee; Allison Pollard Starting an Agile Center of Excellence; Mary Poppendieck The Cost Center Trap; E. Campbell-Pretty Facilitating Squadification for a SAFe Agile Release Train; Jane Prusakova Honest or Nice; Paulo Rebelo Don't Limit the Role of the Scrum Master; Chelsea Robinson Empowering a new culture to emerge in organizations; Johanna Rothman Agile Approaches Require Management Cultural Change; With Agile, No Warnings Needed; Power, Management, and Harassment: It's a Cultural Problem; Rafael Sabbagh The Burger House: A Tale of Systems Thinking, Bottlenecks and Cross-Functionality; Michael Sahota Consciously Approaching Agile for Lasting High Performance; Reese Schmit Stop Wasting $$$ Building So Much Crap!; Ken Schwaber Scrum is simple, just use it as is!!; Hadyn Shaugnessy Managing Culture Risk: A Matter of FLOW; Salma El-Shurafa Innovation: Best Practice for Product Leaders; Cherie Silas The Power of Interlocking Roles; Zuzi Sochova Scrum Transformation Journey ; James Sywilok The Scrum Task Board and the Self-Managing Team; Christine Thompson 3 Skills for an ACE ScrumMaster; Building Trust Safely at Work; Scrum Chums: The Product Owner and Scrum Master Partnership; Plus 5 more authors!




Best Agile Articles 2020


Book Description

We are delighted to bring you this volume of the best agile articles of 2020. Our goal in publishing this book is to cull through the many articles that are published every year to bring you a curated set of high-quality articles that capture the latest knowledge and experience of the agile community in one compact volume. Our purpose is twofold. First, we understand that it can be hard to figure out where to go when looking for ideas and answers. There are thousands of blogs, videos, books, and other resources available at the click of a mouse. But that can be a lot to sort through. So, we thought we could be of some assistance. Second, we wanted to bring some visibility to many people who are doing good work in this field and are providing helpful resources. Our hope is that this publication will help them connect to you, the ones they are writing for. Our intention is that this publication is to be by the agile community as a service to the agile community and for the agile community. With that in mind, we pulled together a great group of volunteers to help get this work into your hands. The articles in this volume were selected by: - A diverse Review Committee of twenty-four people with expertise in a variety of areas related to agile.- The agile community. A call for nominations went out in early 2020 and over 120 articles were nominated by the community. We selected the top 50 articles to present in the publication.The articles themselves cover a wide variety of topics, including organizational structure, culture, and agile leadership. There is something for almost everyone here. This is the fourth book in the series. Previous books, Best Agile Articles of 2017, 2018, and 2019, are available on Amazon and on the website at https: //baa.tco.ac/books.We are thankful for the great participation of the agile community at large and to our sponsor, Scrum.org.




Doing Agile Right


Book Description

Agile has the power to transform work--but only if it's implemented the right way. For decades business leaders have been painfully aware of a huge chasm: They aspire to create nimble, flexible enterprises. But their day-to-day reality is silos, sluggish processes, and stalled innovation. Today, agile is hailed as the essential bridge across this chasm, with the potential to transform a company and catapult it to the head of the pack. Not so fast. In this clear-eyed, indispensable book, Bain & Company thought leader Darrell Rigby and his colleagues Sarah Elk and Steve Berez provide a much-needed reality check. They dispel the myths and misconceptions that have accompanied agile's rise to prominence--the idea that it can reshape an organization all at once, for instance, or that it should be used in every function and for all types of work. They illustrate that agile teams can indeed be powerful, making people's jobs more rewarding and turbocharging innovation, but such results are possible only if the method is fully understood and implemented the right way. The key, they argue, is balance. Every organization must optimize and tightly control some of its operations, and at the same time innovate. Agile, done well, enables vigorous innovation without sacrificing the efficiency and reliability essential to traditional operations. The authors break down how agile really works, show what not to do, and explain the crucial importance of scaling agile properly in order to reap its full benefit. They then lay out a road map for leading the transition to a truly agile enterprise. Agile isn't a goal in itself; it's a means to becoming a high-performance operation. Doing Agile Right is a must-have guide for any company trying to make the transition--or trying to sustain high agility.




Agile Practice Guide


Book Description

Agile Practice Guide – First Edition has been developed as a resource to understand, evaluate, and use agile and hybrid agile approaches. This practice guide provides guidance on when, where, and how to apply agile approaches and provides practical tools for practitioners and organizations wanting to increase agility. This practice guide is aligned with other PMI standards, including A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition, and was developed as the result of collaboration between the Project Management Institute and the Agile Alliance.




Zombie Scrum Survival Guide


Book Description

Escape “Zombie Scrum” and Get Real Value from Agile! “Professional Scrum and Zombie Scrum are mortal enemies in eternal combat. If you relax your guard, Zombie Scrum comes back. This guide helps you stay on your guard, providing very practical tips for identifying when you have become a Zombie and how to stop this from happening. A must-have for any Zombie Scrum hunter.” --Dave West, CEO, Scrum.org “Barry, Christiaan, and Johannes have done a magnificent job of accumulating successful experiences and sharing their inspiring stories in this very practical book. They don't shy away from telling it like it is, which is why their proposals are always as useful as they are grounded in reality.” --Henri Lipmanowicz, cofounder, Liberating Structures Millions of professionals use Scrum. It is the #1 approach to agile software development in the world. Even so, by some estimates, over 70% of Scrum adoptions fall flat. Developers find themselves using “Zombie Scrum” processes that look like Scrum, but are slow, lifeless, and joyless. Scrum is just not working for them. Zombie Scrum Survival Guide reveals why Scrum runs aground and shows how to supercharge your Scrum outcomes, while having a lot more fun along the way. Humorous, visual, and extremely relatable, it offers practical approaches, exercises, and tools for escaping Zombie Scrum. Even if you are surrounded by skeptics, this book will be the antidote to help you build more of what users need, ship faster, improve more continuously, interact more successfully in any team, and feel a whole lot better about what you are doing. Suddenly, one day soon, you will remember: that is why we adopted Scrum in the first place! Learn how Zombie Scrum infects you, why it spreads, and how to inoculate yourself Get closer to your stakeholders, and wake up to their understanding of value Discover why Zombie teams can't learn, and what to do about it Clear away the specific obstacles to real continuous improvement Make self-managed teams real so people can behave like humans, not Zombies Zombie Scrum Survival Guide is for Scrum Masters, Scrum practitioners, Agile coaches and leaders, and everyone who wants to transform the promises of Scrum into reality. Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.




EMPOWERED


Book Description

"Great teams are comprised of ordinary people that are empowered and inspired. They are empowered to solve hard problems in ways their customers love yet work for their business. They are inspired with ideas and techniques for quickly evaluating those ideas to discover solutions that work: they are valuable, usable, feasible and viable. This book is about the idea and reality of "achieving extraordinary results from ordinary people". Empowered is the companion to Inspired. It addresses the other half of the problem of building tech products?how to get the absolute best work from your product teams. However, the book's message applies much more broadly than just to product teams. Inspired was aimed at product managers. Empowered is aimed at all levels of technology-powered organizations: founders and CEO's, leaders of product, technology and design, and the countless product managers, product designers and engineers that comprise the teams. This book will not just inspire companies to empower their employees but will teach them how. This book will help readers achieve the benefits of truly empowered teams"--




Agile Retrospectives


Book Description

Project retrospectives help teams examine what went right and what went wrong on a project. But traditionally, retrospectives (also known as “post-mortems”) are only held at the end of the project—too late to help. You need agile retrospectives that are iterative and incremental. You need to accurately find and fix problems to help the team today. Now Esther and Diana show you the tools, tricks and tips you need to fix the problems you face on a software development project on an on-going basis. You’ll see how to architect retrospectives in general, how to design them specifically for your team and organization, how to run them effectively, how to make the needed changes and how to scale these techniques up. You’ll learn how to deal with problems, and implement solutions effectively throughout the project—not just at the end. This book will help you: Design and run effective retrospectives Learn how to find and fix problems Find and reinforce team strengths Address people issues as well as technological Use tools and recipes proven in the real world With regular tune-ups, your team will hum like a precise, world-class orchestra.




Agile Project Management


Book Description

Best practices for managing projects in agile environments—now updated with new techniques for larger projects Today, the pace of project management moves faster. Project management needs to become more flexible and far more responsive to customers. Using Agile Project Management (APM), project managers can achieve all these goals without compromising value, quality, or business discipline. In Agile Project Management, Second Edition, renowned agile pioneer Jim Highsmith thoroughly updates his classic guide to APM, extending and refining it to support even the largest projects and organizations. Writing for project leaders, managers, and executives at all levels, Highsmith integrates the best project management, product management, and software development practices into an overall framework designed to support unprecedented speed and mobility. The many topics added in this new edition include incorporating agile values, scaling agile projects, release planning, portfolio governance, and enhancing organizational agility. Project and business leaders will especially appreciate Highsmith’s new coverage of promoting agility through performance measurements based on value, quality, and constraints. This edition’s coverage includes: Understanding the agile revolution’s impact on product development Recognizing when agile methods will work in project management, and when they won’t Setting realistic business objectives for Agile Project Management Promoting agile values and principles across the organization Utilizing a proven Agile Enterprise Framework that encompasses governance, project and iteration management, and technical practices Optimizing all five stages of the agile project: Envision, Speculate, Explore, Adapt, and Close Organizational and product-related processes for scaling agile to the largest projects and teams Agile project governance solutions for executives and management The “Agile Triangle”: measuring performance in ways that encourage agility instead of discouraging it The changing role of the agile project leader




User Stories Applied


Book Description

Thoroughly reviewed and eagerly anticipated by the agile community, User Stories Applied offers a requirements process that saves time, eliminates rework, and leads directly to better software. The best way to build software that meets users' needs is to begin with "user stories": simple, clear, brief descriptions of functionality that will be valuable to real users. In User Stories Applied, Mike Cohn provides you with a front-to-back blueprint for writing these user stories and weaving them into your development lifecycle. You'll learn what makes a great user story, and what makes a bad one. You'll discover practical ways to gather user stories, even when you can't speak with your users. Then, once you've compiled your user stories, Cohn shows how to organize them, prioritize them, and use them for planning, management, and testing. User role modeling: understanding what users have in common, and where they differ Gathering stories: user interviewing, questionnaires, observation, and workshops Working with managers, trainers, salespeople and other "proxies" Writing user stories for acceptance testing Using stories to prioritize, set schedules, and estimate release costs Includes end-of-chapter practice questions and exercises User Stories Applied will be invaluable to every software developer, tester, analyst, and manager working with any agile method: XP, Scrum... or even your own home-grown approach.




Agile Scrum


Book Description

EXPANDED AND UPDATED Deliver Products in Short Cycles with Rapid Adaptation to Change, Fast Time-to-Market, and Continuous Improvement -- Which Supports Innovation and Drives Competitive Advantage Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive. There are a variety of frameworks supporting the development of products and services, and most approaches fall into one of two broad categories: traditional or agile. Traditional practices such as waterfall engage sequential development, while agile involves iterative and incremental deliverables. Organizations are increasingly embracing agile to manage projects, and best meet their business needs of rapid response to change, fast delivery speed, and more. With clear and easy to follow step-by-step instructions, Agile Scrum helps you: - Implement and use the most popular agile framework -- Scrum - Deliver products in short cycles with rapid adaptation to change, fast time-to-market, and continuous improvement - Support innovation and drive competitive advantage Agile Scrum is for those interested or involved in innovation, project management, product development, software development or technology management. It's for those who have not yet used Scrum. It's also for people already using Scrum, in roles such as Product Owners, Scrum Masters, Development Team members (business analysts, solution and system architects, designers, developers, testers, etc.), customers, end users, agile coaches, executives, managers, and other stakeholders. For those already using Scrum, this guide can serve as a reference on practices for consideration and potential adaptation. Reactions to Agile Scrum have been incredibly positive. "A superbly written and presented guide to team-based project management that is applicable across a broad range of businesses from consumer products to high-tech." - IndieBRAG "Recommended." - The US Review of Books "The book is excellent." - Readers' Favorite "An all-inclusive instruction guide that is impressively 'user-friendly' in tone, content, clarity, organization, and presentation." - Midwest Book Review "A-type personalities (those inclined to avoid instruction manuals) and non-readers will rejoice upon discovering this guide which makes getting started with Agile Scrum a breeze." - Literary Classics Book Reviews "A must-have for a project manager wanting to introduce Scrum to the organization." - PM World Journal "A clear and authoritative roadmap for successful implementation." - BookViral Agile Scrum has received 17 FIRST PLACE WINS in national and international competitions: 5th Annual Beverly Hills International Book Awards - Business-General category 5th Annual Beverly Hills International Book Awards -Technology category 2016 London Book Festival - Business category Fall 2016 Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards - Business category 2017 Feathered Quill Book Awards - Informational (Business) category 2016 New Apple Book Awards - Technology category 2017 Independent Press Award - Technology category 11th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards - Technology category 2017 Pacific Rim Book Festival - Business category 2017 Bookvana Awards - Green/Conscious Business category 2017 Book Excellence Awards - Technology category 14th Annual Best Book Awards - Business Reference category 2017 New York City Big Book Awards - Technology category 2017 Royal Dragonfly Book Awards - Science & Technology category 2017 Human Relations Indie Book Awards - Workplace category 2018 Florida Book Festival - Business category 2018 Pacific Book Awards - Business category Agile Scrum -- get your copy today!