Proven, 100% Practical Guidance for Making Scrum and Agile Work in Any Organization This is the definitive, realistic, actionable guide to starting fast with Scrum and agile-and then succeeding over the long haul. Leading agile consultant and practitioner Mike Cohn presents detailed recommendations, powerful tips, and real-world case studies drawn from his unparalleled experience helping hundreds of software organizations make Scrum and agile work. Succeeding with Agile is for pragmatic software professionals who want real answers to the most difficult challenges they face in implementing Scrum. Cohn covers every facet of the transition: getting started, helping individuals transition to new roles, structuring teams, scaling up, working with a distributed team, and finally, implementing effective metrics and continuous improvement. Throughout, Cohn presents "Things to Try Now" sections based on his most successful advice. Complementary "Objection" sections reproduce typical conversations with those resisting change and offer practical guidance for addressing their concerns. Coverage includes Practical ways to get started immediately-and "get good" fast Overcoming individual resistance to the changes Scrum requires Staffing Scrum projects and building effective teams Establishing "improvement communities" of people who are passionate about driving change Choosing which agile technical practices to use or experiment with Leading self-organizing teams Making the most of Scrum sprints, planning, and quality techniques Scaling Scrum to distributed, multiteam projects Using Scrum on projects with complex sequential processes or challenging compliance and governance requirements Understanding Scrum's impact on HR, facilities, and project management Whether you've completed a few sprints or multiple agile projects and whatever your role-manager, developer, coach, ScrumMaster, product owner, analyst, team lead, or project lead-this book will help you succeed with your very next project. Then, it will help you go much further: It will help you transform your entire development organization.

Agile Estimating and Planning is the definitive, practical guide to estimating and planning agile projects. In this book, Agile Alliance cofounder Mike Cohn discusses the philosophy of agile estimating and planning and shows you exactly how to get the job done, with real-world examples and case studies. Concepts are clearly illustrated and readers are guided, step by step, toward how to answer the following questions: What will we build? How big will it be? When must it be done? How much can I really complete by then? You will first learn what makes a good plan-and then what makes it agile. Using the techniques in Agile Estimating and Planning, you can stay agile from start to finish, saving time, conserving resources, and accomplishing more. Highlights include: Why conventional prescriptive planning fails and why agile planning works How to estimate feature size using story points and ideal days–and when to use each How and when to re-estimate How to prioritize features using both financial and nonfinancial approaches How to split large features into smaller, more manageable ones How to plan iterations and predict your team's initial rate of progress How to schedule projects that have unusually high uncertainty or schedule-related risk How to estimate projects that will be worked on by multiple teams Agile Estimating and Planning supports any agile, semiagile, or iterative process, including Scrum, XP, Feature-Driven Development, Crystal, Adaptive Software Development, DSDM, Unified Process, and many more. It will be an indispensable resource for every development manager, team leader, and team member.

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.

Learning Agile is a comprehensive guide to the most popular agile methods, written in a light and engaging style that makes it easy for you to learn. Agile has revolutionized the way teams approach software development, but with dozens of agile methodologies to choose from, the decision to "go agile" can be tricky. This practical book helps you sort it out, first by grounding you in agile’s underlying principles, then by describing four specific—and well-used—agile methods: Scrum, extreme programming (XP), Lean, and Kanban. Each method focuses on a different area of development, but they all aim to change your team’s mindset—from individuals who simply follow a plan to a cohesive group that makes decisions together. Whether you’re considering agile for the first time, or trying it again, you’ll learn how to choose a method that best fits your team and your company. Understand the purpose behind agile’s core values and principles Learn Scrum’s emphasis on project management, self-organization, and collective commitment Focus on software design and architecture with XP practices such as test-first and pair programming Use Lean thinking to empower your team, eliminate waste, and deliver software fast Learn how Kanban’s practices help you deliver great software by managing flow Adopt agile practices and principles with an agile coach

As contrary as it sounds, "planning" -- as we traditionally understand the term--can be the worst thing a company can do. Consider that volatile weather events disrupt trusted supply chains, markets, and promised delivery schedules. Ever-shifting geo-political tensions, as well as internal political upheaval within U.S. and global governments, derail long-planned new ventures. Technology failures block opportunities. Competitors suddenly change their product or release date; your team cannot meet the pace of innovations in your market niche, leaving you sidelined. There are myriad ways in the current business environment for a company's well-considered business plans to go awry. Most business schools continue to prepare managers to be effective in stable and predictable environments, conditions that, if they ever existed at all, are long gone. The Agility Shift shows business leaders exactly how to make the radical mindset and strategy shift necessary to create an agile, entrepreneurial organization that can innovate and thrive in complex, ever-changing contexts. As author Pamela Meyer explains, there is much more involved than a reconfiguration of the org chart and job descriptions. It requires relinquishing the illusion of control at the very foundation of most management training and business practice. Despite most leaders' approaches, "Agility is not simply accelerated planning." Unlike many agility books on the market, The Agility Shift provides specific, actionable strategies and tactics for leaders at all levels of the organization to put into practice immediately to improve agility and achieve results.

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.

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit Adapting agile practices to your development organization Uncovering and eradicating waste throughout the software development lifecycle Practical techniques for every development manager, project manager, and technical leader Lean software development: applying agile principles to your organization In Lean Software Development, Mary and Tom Poppendieck identify seven fundamental "lean" principles, adapt them for the world of software development, and show how they can serve as the foundation for agile development approaches that work. Along the way, they introduce 22 "thinking tools" that can help you customize the right agile practices for any environment. Better, cheaper, faster software development. You can have all three–if you adopt the same lean principles that have already revolutionized manufacturing, logistics and product development. Iterating towards excellence: software development as an exercise in discovery Managing uncertainty: "decide as late as possible" by building change into the system. Compressing the value stream: rapid development, feedback, and improvement Empowering teams and individuals without compromising coordination Software with integrity: promoting coherence, usability, fitness, maintainability, and adaptability How to "see the whole"–even when your developers are scattered across multiple locations and contractors Simply put, Lean Software Development helps you refocus development on value, flow, and people–so you can achieve breakthrough quality, savings, speed, and business alignment.