Book Notes #27: Succeeding With Agile by Mike Cohn

Succeeding with Agile by Mike Cohn is a guide to start fast with Scrum and agile to succeed over the long run and making Scrum and agile work.

Title: Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum
Author: Mike Cohn
Year: 2010
Pages: 475

Succeeding With Agile is not a book for those who are completely new to Scrum or agile. There are other books, classes, and even websites for that. If you are completely new to Scrum, start with one of those.

Mike Cohn, a leading agile consultant, and practitioner give thorough ideas, compelling tips, and real-world case studies based on his unrivalled expertise in assisting hundreds of software firms in making Scrum and agile work.

As a result, I gave this book a rating of 8.0/10.

For me, a book with a note 10 is one I consider reading again every year. Among the books I rank with 10, for example, is Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Overview of Succeeding With Agile

Succeeding With Agile is intended for pragmatic software professionals looking for real-world solutions to the most difficult difficulties they experience when implementing Scrum.

Succeeding With Agile addresses every aspect of the shift, including how to get started, how to help employees transfer to new positions, how to structure teams, scale up, work with a distributed team, and lastly, how to implement effective metrics and continuous improvement.

Succeeding With Agile covers crucial subjects such as:

 – 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 driving change

 – Choosing which agile technical practices to use or experiment

 – Making the most of Scrum sprints, planning

 – Scaling Scrum to distributed, multiteam projects

 – Using Scrum on projects with complex sequential processes

 – Using Scrum to comply with governance requirements

 – Understanding Scrum’s impact on HR, facilities, and project management

My Book Highlights & Quotes

“… Scrum teams are encouraged not to think in terms of my tasks and your tasks but of our tasks. This forces collaboration among team members to new highs. Working in this way also creates a mindset of shared responsibility that will be new to many team members…”

“… Quality is improved because working at a sustainable pace prevents sloppiness. Quality is also improved through many of the engineering practices such as pair programming, refactoring, and a strong emphasis on early and automated testing…”

“… Like sirens singing to us from the rocks, best practices tempt us to relax and stop the effort of continuous improvement that is essential to Scrum…”

“… The “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality is about as far as can be from an agile “if it ain’t perfect (and it never will be), keep improving” mindset…”

“… Having a chance to change or personalize a process to fit themselves seems to be a critical success factor for a team to adopt a process. It’s the act of creation that seems to bind teams to ‘their own’ process…”

“… Think about your current transition to Scrum. Are you just getting started, in the middle, or feeling like you’re nearing the end of the transition push? No matter where you are, identify the primary obstacle you think may be holding you back from the next level of success…”

“… Getting coworkers to commit to a Scrum transition effort rather than merely comply with it (perhaps waiting for it to blow over) is what we would like to achieve with a successful promotion…”

“… Most successful changes, and especially a change to an agile process like Scrum, must include elements of both top-down and bottom-up change…”

Agile development is an iterative and incremental approach to software development that emphasizes flexibility, collaboration, and customer satisfaction.

The key principles of Succeeding With Agile development are to deliver working software frequently, to welcome changing requirements, and to work closely with the customer throughout the development process.

One of the key practices of Agile development is the use of Scrum, which is a framework for managing and completing complex projects.

Succeeding With Agile is aimed at software development teams, project managers, and anyone looking to implement Agile practices in their organization. It provides practical advice and real-world examples to help readers understand and apply Agile concepts in their own projects.

Whether you’ve completed a few sprints or numerous agile projects, and regardless of your role, Succeeding With Agile will help you succeed on your next project. 

Then it will assist you in going much further: transforming your entire development organization.

I am incredibly grateful that you have taken the time to read this post.

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