A while back I started reading a copy of the Art of Agile Development, which is a great book. I was reading the book for more than one reason. I obviously wanted to learn more about how others approach agile development, but I was also looking for a book to recommend to other developers as well as to businesses.
One of the biggest troubles with agile development is the initial resistance to agile development shown by both developers as well as businesses. I am even talking about the developers and businesses who have already bought in to the idea that agile can be a good thing. People agree with the overall idea of agile, when it forces them to change their existing practices many will put up at least passive resistance.
This book is my new answer to some of that. The book is written with a good amount of details and examples that will backup the information it provides about agile development, and it does so in such a way that both development teams and those working with the teams can have a better understanding of how agile development can work.
The Art of Agile Development is loaded with information about real-world problems faced by software development teams, and how agile development worked in these situations. The book covers these examples while describing the specific steps the author recommends for performing agile software development.
I don’t follow the same practices in all cases as what the book describes. I don’t manage stories in the same way, and I don’t estimate and track the time on that work the same way. This doesn’t matter, because the book is really providing information on how agile can work and how it has worked in the past. Each team needs to find how best they can apply agile and work with them. I use a mix of Agile, Scrum, XP, and anything else that the team thinks will make us work better. As long as the process helps us deliver better software we’re all about it.
If you’re considering agile or trying to convince other people to consider agile, I would recommend reading this book and passing it along to others when you’re done reading it.
Full disclosure: I did not pay for this book. The copy of the book that I read was sent to me by the publisher.
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