The Art of Agile Development

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 438 pages
• Published by: O'Reilly Media, Inc. October 26, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0596527675
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0596527679
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.9 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 1.5 pounds

Product Description
The Art of Agile Development contains practical guidance for anyone considering or applying agile development for building valuable software. Plenty of books describe what agile development is or why it helps software projects succeed, but very few combine information for developers, managers, testers, and customers into a single package that they can apply directly. This book provides no-nonsense advice on agile planning, development, delivery, and management taken from the authors' many years of experience with Extreme Programming (XP). You get a gestalt view of the agile development process, including comprehensive guidance for non-technical readers and hands-on technical practices for developers and testers. The Art of Agile Development gives you clear answers to questions such as: How can we adopt agile development? Do we really need to pair program? What metrics should we report? What if I can't get my customer to participate? How much documentation should we write? When do we design and architect? As a non-developer, how should I work with my agile team? Where is my product roadmap? How does QA fit in? The book teaches you how to adopt XP practices, describes each practice in detail, then discusses principles that will allow you to modify XP and create your own agile method. In particular, this book tackles the difficult aspects of agile development: the need for cooperation and trust among team members. Whether you're currently part of an agile team, working with an agile team, or interested in agile development, this book provides the practical tips you need to start practicing agile development. As your experience grows, the book will grow with you, providing exercises andinformation that will teach you first to understand the rules of agile development, break them, and ultimately abandon rules altogether as you master the art of agile development. "Jim Shore and Shane Warden expertly explain the practices and benefits of Extreme Programming. They offer advice from their real-world experiences in leading teams. They answer questions about the practices and show contraindications - ways that a practice may be mis-applied. They offer alternatives you can try if there are impediments to applying a practice, such as the lack of an on-site customer. --Ken Pugh, Author of Jolt Award Winner, Prefactoring "I will leave a copy of this book with every team I visit." --Brian Marick, Exampler Consulting

About The Author
James Shore, signatory number ten to the Agile Manifesto, has been coaching agile teams large and small before they were called agile. He brings both breadth and depth to his discussion of agile development. In 2005, the Agile Alliance recognized James with their most significant award, the Gordon Pask Award for Contributions to Agile Practice. James is an internationally recognized speaker who consults for companies interested in agile development. He writes about agile development on his top-ranked blog, jamesshore.com.

chromatic is the technical editor of the O'Reilly Network, specializing in programming, Linux®, and open source development. Among other books for O'Reilly, he is the author of the "Extreme Programming Pocket Guide", which distilled Extreme Programming into a concise explanation and reference. Many readers have commented that they buy copies for all of their customers to explain how they work. Ward Cunningham (co-creator of Extreme Programming) considers it the best explanation of the practice.

Reader Reviews
I've been working through this book for the last five or six weeks and have been loving it. Usually I do a deep skim read of most books -- the kind of reading you do in college where you need to get the gist of a book and some of the pearls -- but this one's grabbed me into an intense period of reading, reflecting, and re-reading parts. Warden and Shore have written a fantastic work here. The book covers all aspects of Agile from planning to delivery, and each aspect is broken down into sensible sections. It reads like a series of great articles on very granular components of Agile such as Refactoring, 10-Minute Build, or Stand Up Meetings, but it's so well-written that all the articles mesh together perfectly leaving a smooth path through the book. Each article (and that's my description, not theirs) lays out a specific practice or component of Agile, walks you through the benefits of it, details how that practice fits in the larger picture, shows you how to implement that practice, and discusses how to identify when you might need to implement or rework the practice. Each article is extremely well done and approaches its topic from a very pragmatic view. There are also cross-references to other practices elsewhere in the book that can help you solve related issues. Additionally, there are great references to other books, articles, and web posts. Overall the book's just terrific. It's easy to read, it's pragmatic and practical, and it's thought-provoking. Art of Agile Development can be used by newcomers interested in moving into Agile practices, but it's also absolutely applicable to Agile pros looking to improve their own system. It certainly got me fired up with a number of ideas on how to improve our process even more. Perhaps that's the best endorsement of this book. Comment | | (Report this)