Agile Book Recommendations

The following books are the main books that I recommend as starting points for learning about the various aspects of Agile. While their is a fair amount of overlap each of them covers a specific topic. The one on leading self-directed teams is not strictly an "Agile" book, but it is one of the few books talking about self-managed/self-organized/self-directed teams that I have found. The Toyota way is also not an "Agile" book but does a great job of explaining the concepts of Lean which I believe are the foundation for Agile.

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Second Edition of "Do It Yourself Agile" Available as Free Download

At the beginning of the month I released the first version of "Do It Yourself Agile." The response was tremendous and I am very grateful to the many people that blogged and tweeted about it. I am also very thankful for all of the feedback and suggestions that I have received. In total, the book has now been downloaded more than 4,000 times.

Here is the second version, which takes into account all of your feedback and also incorporates new sections based on recent blog posts. Please keep the feedback coming. If there is something you feel is missing, let me know. New material usually starts out as a blog post first, so you'll get immediate feedback.

While I believe that an Agile coach, whether recruited internally or externally, is still the best, fastest, and least expensive (in terms of ROI) path to Agile success, not everyone can do that. It may be politics, budget, or some other reason that prevents folks from using seasoned coaches. In any case, DIY Agile is here to stay, and the book "Do it Yourself Agile" is intended to be a resource you can lean on as you transition to Agile on your own.

Let me know what you think. I look forward to producing more versions incorporating your feedback.

The book is freely downloadable, no strings attached. I only ask that if you point people to the book, please point them to this blog post rather than linking directly to the pdf, copying the pdf, or providing the content in some other format.

"Do it Yourself Agile" (pdf) 180+ pages

"Do It Yourself Agile" - condensed web version

Do It Yourself Agile

Originally, my blog was focused on Software Configuration Management. Then I described in a blog post how I realized that I'm not really an SCM person, I'm a software development process person that had been focused on SCM. So, I changed the name of the blog to "Agile Development Thoughts." Today I realized that this blog has changed its focus from random thoughts about Agile Development to a blog about Agile for the Agile DIY'er. So as of today, this blog is now "Do It Yourself Agile."

I still believe that the quickest route to Agile success is to get people involved who have done Agile before. But, that option is not always available and even when it is, it may not be possible to retain an Agile coach for the multiple years that it will take to reach your full Agile potential.

So, the idea of this site is to give the Agile DIY'er a resource to lean on. A good place to start is the web-only book "Do It Yourself Agile." This is an evolving book which is expanding and changing every week in response to questions and discussion from readers like you. If there is a topic that you don't see covered or that you would like to explore more fully, let me know! Just post a comment wherever you see fit or use the Q&A page. I'll answer your question or create a new blog post on the topic as soon as I can.

Check out the web-only book "Do it Yourself Agile" .

The Use of Self-Managing Teams Outside the Context of Software Development

[Note: this post was heavily edited on Jan 18th to take into account comments on the earlier version.]

Most of what you need to do to become Agile requires only re-arrangement of what you are already doing. For instance, managing a backlog is still a process of deciding which work to do and in which order to do it, it isn't something that boggles the mind and makes people say "some people might be able to do that, but I don't see how we could." Managing what work to do with a backlog is like tuning an engine. It is straight-forward to explain, learn, and implement. Whereas, moving from conventional management to self-managing teams sounds like moving from steam to internal combustion. It is completely different and not well understood. But wait, what exactly are self-managing teams?

The terms “self-organizing,” “self-managing,” and “self-directing” have been used to mean many things, but are generally thought of as being in the same ballpark. In this post I will use the term “self-managing.” While looking for other writing on the topic prior to writing this post, I found that it is a poorly defined topic within the Agile literature.

What the Heck is a Self-Managing Team Anyway?
What sort of management does self-management apply to? What is the scope? Does it just apply to how I manage myself on my pre-assigned tasks? Does it only apply to project management? Does it mean dealing with hiring and firing? What about budgets? Some folks have taken it to mean that there is no manager, that the Scrum Master is the manager, etc. Sure, there are lots of short sections on self-managing teams in Agile books and articles, but it is not much more than a vague description of the concept repeated in different ways by different authors. This is not a criticism, only an observation that self-management it is an underdeveloped area of Agile.

In the Poppendieck's "Implementing Lean Software Development" there are four pages on "Self-Directing Work", most of which talks about project management. Kent Beck's "Extreme Programming Explained" takes self-management for granted without specifically talking about it. Ken Schwaber's book "Agile Software Development With Scrum" contains a couple of paragraphs on self-organization but mostly takes it for granted. In general, most of the material on the topic assumes that you will be doing it and there are practices which are meant to support it, but there is no in-depth discussion of exactly what it is and how to do it.

In searching the web for a more in-depth treatment, I did find one really good article by Esther Derby in the December 2008 issue of Better Software Magazine entitled "What's a Manager to Do?" This article gives a good overview of the concepts as well as some pitfalls and how to avoid them.

I had better luck finding reference material on self-management by looking outside of software development all together. At some point during my searching, I accidentally left off the keyword "Agile" and discovered that there are whole books on self-managing teams, and they have nothing to do with software development at all. I ordered three of them and am currently in the process of reading them. I'll post new entries as I go.

Here are the books on my reading list related to self-managing teams:

Business Without Bosses
Leading Self-Directed Work Teams
The Wisdom of Teams

Apparently, people have been promoting and practicing self-managing teams completely outside the realm of software development for quite a while. While it holds promise, it does not yet seem to have become a widespread practice. If it is still in its infancy in general, is it really a good idea to promote it in conjunction with all of the other parts of Agile which, IMHO, are much more straight-forward and are closer to our core-competencies as an industry?

Even though self-managing teams are not well defined or described in Agile, it doesn’t really matter. There are actually many no-brainer “self-management” oriented Agile practices that are straight-forward and beneficial in their own right. The fact that they may get us closer to creating self-managing teams is a side benefit.

Next: "No Brainer Self-Management Practices in Agile"

Do It Yourself Agile

[Last updated: Oct 1, 2009]
This is an evolving web-only book for the Agile DIY'er. A downloadable version, with more content (180+ pages), is also available.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Agile in a Nutshell
Traditional Development Scenario
Agile Development Scenario
Primary vs Secondary Benefits
Agile Development, What's in it for Me?
Reinvest in Your Engine by Improving the Work Environment
Your Development Process is Part of Your Work Environment
A Quick Summary of the Benefits of Adopting Agile

The Problems With Traditional Development
Dev Team Having Performance Problems? Try Niagra!
The Chinese Finger Trap of Traditional Development
The Chinese Finger Trap: Architecture, Development, and QA

Short Iterations
Unconciously Agile
The Agile Waterfall
Sustainable Pace: Supply vs. Demand
The Usability of Short Iterations

Process Perspective
There is no Bug. It is Not The Bug That Bends, it is Only Yourself
Apply Elegant Architecture to Your Dev Team
How Agile Solves Problems

Agile Lifecycle
Agile Product Management
The Role of Defect Management in Agile Development
Designing Software is the Same as Predicting the Future
The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work
The "Faberge Egg" Widget
Frequent Releases Improve Code Quality Faster
The Role of QA in an Agile Project

Integration
Multi-Stage Continuous Integration
Advanced Multi-Stage Continuous Integration

Releasing
It's Better to Find Customer Reported Problems ASAP
Customers Don't Want Frequent Releases
Tuning the Frequency of Your Release

Adopting Agile
Stage 1: Preparing for the Transition to Agile
Stage 2: Establishing a Natural Rhythm

Complementary Practices
Do You Need a Standup Meeting?

Appendix A
Agile Case Study: Litle and Co.
The Iterative Design of a Transforming Lego Car

Bibliography

More to come!