Agile Adoption Patterns: A Roadmap to Organizational Success

Agile Adoption Patterns: A Roadmap to Organizational Success

by Amr Elssamadisy
Released June 2008
Publisher(s): Addison-Wesley Professional
ISBN: 9780321579447

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Book description

Proven Patterns and Techniques for Succeeding with Agile in Your Organization

Agile methods promise to help you create software that delivers far more business value—and do it faster, at lower cost, and with less pain. However, many organizations struggle with implementation and leveraging these methods to their full benefit. In this book, Amr Elssamadisy identifies the powerful lessons that have been learned about successfully moving to agile and distills them into 30 proven agile adoption patterns.

Elssamadisy walks you through the process of defining your optimal agile adoption strategy with case studies and hands-on exercises that illuminate the key points. He systematically examines the most common obstacles to agile implementation, identifying proven solutions. You’ll learn where to start, how to choose the best agile practices for your business and technical environment, and how to adopt agility incrementally, building on steadily growing success.

Next, he presents the definitive agile adoption pattern reference: all the information you need to implement the strategy that you’ve already defined. Utilizing the classic pattern format, he explains each agile solution in its proper context, revealing why it works—and how to make the most of it. The pattern reference prepares you to

  • Understand the core drivers, principles, and values associated with agile success

  • Tightly focus development on delivering business value–and recognize the “smells” of a project headed off track

  • Gain rapid, effective feedback practices: iteration, kickoff and stand-up meetings, demos, retrospectives, and much more

  • Foster team development: co-location, self-organization, cross-functional roles, and how to bring the customer aboard

  • Facilitate technical tasks and processes: testing, refactoring, continuous integration, simple design, collective code ownership, and pair programming

  • Act as an effective coach, learning to engage the community and promote learning

  • Integrate “clusters” of agile practices that work exceptionally well together

    • Agile Adoption Patterns will help you whether you’re planning your first agile project, trying to improve your next project, or evangelizing agility throughout your organization. This actionable advice is designed to work with any agile method, from XP and Scrum to Crystal Clear and Lean. The practical insights will make you more effective in any agile project role: as leader, developer, architect, or customer.

    Foreword xxiii & xxvi

    Preface xxvii

    Acknowledgments xxxiii

    About the Author xxxvii

    Part 1: Thoughts about Software Development 1

    Chapter 1: Learning Is the Bottleneck 3

    Chapter 2: Personal Agility for Potent Agile Adoption 13

    Part 2: Crafting an Agile Adoption Strategy 21

    Chapter 3: Business Value 23

    Chapter 4: Smells 29

    Chapter 5: Adopting Agile Practices 37

    Part 3: The Pattern Catalog 53

    Chapter 6: The Patterns of Agile Practice Adoption 55

    Chapter 7: Goal 61

    Chapter 8: Cycle 65

    Part 3.1: Feedback Practices 69

    Chapter 9: Iteration 71

    Chapter 10: Kickoff Meeting 77

    Chapter 11: Backlog 81

    Chapter 12: Planning Poker 87

    Chapter 13: Stand-Up Meeting 93

    Chapter 14: Done State 99

    Chapter 15: Demo 103

    Chapter 16: Retrospective 109

    Chapter 17: Release Often 115

    Chapter 18: Co-Located Team 119

    Chapter 19: Self-Organizing Team 125

    Chapter 20: Cross-Functional Team 131

    Chapter 21: Customer Part of Team 137

    Chapter 22: Evocative Document 143

    Chapter 23: User Story 149

    Chapter 24: Use Case 153

    Chapter 25: Information Radiator 157

    Part 3.2:Technical Practices 161

    Chapter 26: Automated Developer Tests 163

    Chapter 27: Test-Last Development 173

    Chapter 28: Test-First Development 177

    Chapter 29: Refactoring 183

    Chapter 30: Continuous Integration 189

    Chapter 31: Simple Design 197

    Chapter 32: Functional Tests 203

    Chapter 33: Collective Code Ownership 219

    Chapter 34: Pair Programming 223

    Part 3.3:Supporting Practices 229

    Chapter 35: Coach 231

    Chapter 36: Engage the Community 235

    Chapter 37: Reading Circle 239

    Chapter 38: Workshop 245

    Chapter 39: Classroom Training 249

    Part 3.4:The Clusters 255

    Chapter 40: Agile Iteration 257

    Chapter 41: Communication Cluster 263

    Chapter 42: Evolutionary Design 269

    Chapter 43: Test-Driven Development 277

    Chapter 44: Test-Driven Requirements 285

    Part 4:Case Studies 293

    Chapter 45: BabyCenter 295

    Chapter 46: Company X 305

    Part 5:Appendices 321

    Appendix A: Pattern to Business Value Mappings 323

    Appendix B: Pattern-to-Smell Mappings 325

    Appendix C: Getting the Most from Agile Practice Patterns 327

    Appendix D: Further Reading 331

    Bibliography 333

    Index 339

    Table of contents

    1. Cover Page
    2. Title Page
    3. Copyright Page
    4. Dedication
    5. Contents
    6. Foreword
    7. Foreword
    8. Preface
    9. Acknowledgments
    10. About the Author
    11. Part 1: Thoughts about Software Development
      1. Chapter 1: Learning Is the Bottleneck
      2. Chapter 2: Personal Agility for Potent Agile Adoption
    12. Part 2: Crafting an Agile Adoption Strategy
      1. Chapter 3: Business Value
      2. Chapter 4: Smells
      3. Chapter 5: Adopting Agile Practices
    13. Part 3: The Pattern Catalog
      1. Chapter 6: The Patterns of Agile Practice Adoption
      2. Chapter 7: Goal
      3. Chapter 8: Cycle
    14. Part 3.1: Feedback Practices
      1. Chapter 9: Iteration
      2. Chapter 10: Kickoff Meeting
      3. Chapter 11: Backlog
      4. Chapter 12: Planning Poker
      5. Chapter 13: Stand-Up Meeting
      6. Chapter 14: Done State
      7. Chapter 15: Demo
      8. Chapter 16: Retrospective
      9. Chapter 17: Release Often
      10. Chapter 18: Co-Located Team
      11. Chapter 19: Self-Organizing Team
      12. Chapter 20: Cross-Functional Team
      13. Chapter 21: Customer Part of Team
      14. Chapter 22: Evocative Document
      15. Chapter 23: User Story
      16. Chapter 24: Use Case
      17. Chapter 25: Information Radiator
    15. Part 3.2: Technical Practices
      1. Chapter 26: Automated Developer Tests
      2. Chapter 27: Test-Last Development
      3. Chapter 28: Test-First Development
      4. Chapter 29: Refactoring
      5. Chapter 30: Continuous Integration
      6. Chapter 31: Simple Design
      7. Chapter 32: Functional Tests
      8. Chapter 33: Collective Code Ownership
      9. Chapter 34: Pair Programming
    16. Part 3.3: Supporting Practices
      1. Chapter 35: Coach
      2. Chapter 36: Engage the Community
      3. Chapter 37: Reading Circle
      4. Chapter 38: Workshop
      5. Chapter 39: Classroom Training
    17. Part 3.4: The Clusters
      1. Chapter 40: Agile Iteration
      2. Chapter 41: Communication Cluster
      3. Chapter 42: Evolutionary Design
      4. Chapter 43: Test-Driven Development
      5. Chapter 44: Test-Driven Requirements
    18. Part 4: Case Studies
      1. Chapter 45: BabyCenter
      2. Chapter 46: Company X
    19. Part 5: Appendices
      1. Appendix A: Pattern to Business Value Mappings
      2. Appendix B: Pattern-to-Smell Mappings
      3. Appendix C: Getting the Most from Agile Practice Patterns
      4. Appendix D: Further Reading
    20. Bibliography
    21. Index
    22. Footnotes
      1. Foreward
      2. Foreward
      3. Chapter 1
      4. Chapter 2
      5. Chapter 3
      6. Chapter 4
      7. Chapter 5
      8. Chapter 11
      9. Chapter 12
      10. Chapter 13
      11. Chapter 16
      12. Chapter 19
      13. Chapter 21
      14. Chapter 22
      15. Chapter 25
      16. Chapter 26
      17. Chapter 28
      18. Chapter 30
      19. Chapter 31
      20. Chapter 34
      21. Chapter 36
      22. Chapter 38
      23. Chapter 42
      24. Chapter 43
      25. Chapter 45

    Product information

    • Title: Agile Adoption Patterns: A Roadmap to Organizational Success
    • Author(s): Amr Elssamadisy
    • Release date: June 2008
    • Publisher(s): Addison-Wesley Professional
    • ISBN: 9780321579447