Excellent story format DevOps / Agile book
934920
Excellent book. This was recommended to me by couple of colleagues. This one dives into much hotly discussed topic of DevOps / Agile by telling a story. I found this a mix of easy, medium and hard intensity read. There are some parts of this book which flow very easy. Some parts though need you to understand some IT and Release management concepts, which wasn't a problem for me - but a consideration if you do not have this background.
3089247
The authors tell a great story that gets across compelling lessons in applying Lean manufacturing principles to IT work.  I particularly liked the way that global best practices were woven into the story line and repeatedly reinforced. The final sections of the book feature a backstory on the main story, an analysis of the key concepts, and masses of further reading for the converted.

It may be true that there is always a new Fad in IT, and maybe it was time for Agile to step back for something else to take center-stage. So is DevOps the latest fad?

Or is IT finally applying to itself the lessons we have been presumptuous enough to evangelize into business over the decades? The message that processes are end-to-end, that they run across functional silo boundaries, and that they need to be considered in context. The second message is that IT work is not rocket science and does not have to exist in a chaotic content, but rather it is amenable to standardization through the intelligent application of proven-in-practice scientific principles.

This is a superb book. It has lessons for senior and executive business management, for IT management, and for anyone involved in delivering IT.

If you don't read this book and your competitors do, they will be eating your lunch.
1599100
I complement the author of this book for creating a good easy to read overview and introduction to Agile Project Management. For me this is a good starting point to understanding Agile. What I like about it is that it gets right down to the meat of Agile with sound practical advice and explanations presented in a simple straight forward manner, without the long winded droll collegiate commentary. This book was obviously written by an experienced practitioner of Agile, who has repeatedly lectured or explained the basic concepts of Agile to many others. The book is easy to understand and has a smooth writing style which does not put you to sleep. You actually learn and absorb the material very quickly and are able to apply what you have learned with confidence.  I have  recommended this book to other managers in my group, and in each instance, after reading some of it they had a clearer understanding of Agile and were very grateful I recommended it to them.
1947690
As an experienced Software Engineer the last thing I wanted to read was another book about "structured methodologies".  Typically, these books are 1) hard to read and 2) frustrating to apply to real-life software  development.  Dean Leffingwell has addressed both of these problems in  "Managing Software Requirements: A Unified Approach".
The  writing is enjoyable and easy to digest.  You can read it from start to  finish without getting lost in academic discussions.  In addition to being  well written, this book addresses many of the issues we face in software  development from a practical viewpoint.
Leffingwell stresses how  requirements should be a living part of the development lifecycle (in  contrast to the common practice of gathering and documenting requirements,  then putting them on a shelf.)  While it does not provide a cookbook recipe  for the software development lifecycle, this book does show us how  different projects require different approaches, giving some realistic  examples.  And it doesn't gloss over the fact that gathering requirements  can be just plain hard.
This is a big and meaty book. It goes into  great depth but doesn't stall out.  Less technical users won't understand  all of it, but will get a solid overview of the importance of requirements  management.  Developers will get insight into the current thinking by some  of the industry leaders in requirements management and software  engineering. Skeptics who are tired of the unfulfilled promises of  structured methodologies will see that real progress is being made in the  field of software engineering.
141333
Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) adds yet another agile `flavor' to the many currently floating out there.  What differentiates DAD from the other Agile flavors is that it incorporates many of the best practices of the non-Agile methodologies in order to achieve what the authors refer to as `Agility@scale'.  Too often, agile practices can involve starting from scratch and working in a vacuum.  This will work well for small, self-organizing teams working on isolated software development.  For the rest of us working in Enterprise I.T., working on small, isolated teams is simply not an option.  The integration points too many, the effort too large, infrastructure too intensive or costly and the co-ordination costs are high.
This is where DAD steps in.  The authors ambitiously strive to seek a balance between the best of the Agile and Non-Agile project management body of knowledge.  Their emphasis is on delivering solutions, not just software.  Also, the authors also note the wisdom of leveraging existing infrastructure and enterprise solutions without building from scratch.  This is still an Agile approach but one focused more on realities of the medium to large I.T. implementations rather than the small ones.  Whereas most Agile approaches strive to keep teams as small as possible, this approach attempts to scale them up for larger projects by creating (potentially) multiple small teams but by putting in place a minimalist project management co-ordination necessary to keep those teams working for the same goals.  The authors leverage Lean practices, Extreme Programming (XP), Open Unified Process (OpenUp), Scrum, Agile Modeling and Agile Data approaches, as well as a number of other sources, to scale up the successes that Agile approaches have had on smaller implementations.

All in all, this is a very good book on a very much needed topic.  With all the acronyms and frequent project manager-speak, it can be a little rough of a read.  This is a good choice for a Project Manager or Team Lead who is struggling to fit their enterprise effort into the small teams recommended by most Agile methods.
74784
I am an agile, scrum, lean developer and I want to be an agile, scrum, lean entrepreneur.  This book brings in all together in a delightfully clear, concise and entertaining read.
2435423
It is really one of the best books I've came across when it comes to agile and product management. It is rich with different case studies and examples and easy to read and understand.
As a product owner, I face many challenges on creating stories, managing sprints and grooming session. This book has helped me with recommendations and advises on how to manage stories, map them to give a successful product that will add value to your business.

Highly recommended.
2879155
Whether you believe in The Scaled Agile framework or not, this book is superb. It provides factual and insightful information about the  "why" of Agile practices in an enterprise environment. There's a lot of strong information where traditional agile methodology falls short such as the role of the architect, the product manager, and addressing the complexities of multi-team projects that goes way beyond SOS. Interesting and educational too. Love it.
463254
As a collaborator of this book it has been a great pleasure for me to read it and learn from many testimonials of recognized agile practitioners. The focus of this book is very clear: much has been written about agile methodologies and techniques, but little about how to succeed in transforming organizations thorough value driven and self empowered teams.  This book provides not only the technical foundations, but also a lot of personal experiences to achieve such an exciting transformation.
2440890
Having not used Kanban for a few years as previous projects have all ran sprints, I wanted a very fast re-introduction to Kanban, but then with a deep dive on the main points, and that is exactly what I found with Kanban in Action.

The book immediately jumps into an excellent story about a fictions development team, and works through familiar issues that they currently have and how without changing too much of the business process they are able to implement Kanban immediately. The story was so engrossing that I managed to miss my metro stop.

After this story the book then dives into chapters covering each of the points discussed in the story. I found particularly helpful the chapter on WIP limits, why they are there and how you and the team should come up with the limits together. The authors also take you through a simple game that shows why having the limits in place speeds up development.

The authors are oozing with knowledge and experience, which gives the book fantastic antidotes, like the team that stapled banana skins to WIP items which are blocked and the section on how to remove a sticky note from the pack. Anyone with previous experience of using sticky notes will appreciate this as they fall off easily and you find a big pile in the morning.

The Authors are also very good at comparing the different tools out there for applying Kanban and talk extensively about how a physical Kanban board radiates data, where as an electronic system is more of a fridge that hides data from the team. However the authors do a great job of introducing the reader to numerous techniques for working with remote teams, based on their real experiences and mention several good online tools for managing Kanban boards.

The book also has a great close on the people to follow on Twitter, blogs to read and further reading books.

This book was such a good read that I have recommend that my whole team read it immediately.
169043
I have been vividly following Luis  contribution to the Agile Community . I have also heard very highly of Ben Linders from Coaching peers.
This book is definitely a must to add to the kitty of every Agile Practitioner.  This has lots of practical tips to conduct retrospectives , which will motivate the team and bring out the real fun of the team. The teams clearly enjoy the different games and also helps the facilitator to bring out the right objectives of the retrospective. I would highly recommend this book to every one.
126347
Lean UX is a great overview of how to do User Experience work in an agile team. A great complement to&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Lean-Startup-How-Today-s-Entrepreneurs-Use-Continuous-Innovation-to-Create-Radically-Successful-Businesses/dp/0307887898/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses</a>, this book has stories, templates, guidelines to help you both use User Experience Design in an agile team as well as use User Experience to help your agile team do a better job of building the right thing. Much of what you'll read will strike you as "common sense," which, sadly, does not translate to common practice in many organizations.

The book is short, so it's quick to read and get an overview, but it is also structured in a way that makes it amenable to reference as you execute. This is a rare book that is information dense, yet which does not allow that information density to compromise readability. The viability of the book as a reference compensates for the one flaw I see in it's presentation of the principles of Lean UX: there are too many principles.

The book starts with a list of 15 (related) principles of Lean UX, which is far more than most people can keep in their head, making it harder to both sell and internalize the ideas. I understand that there is a lot to do to implement Lean UX, but I can't help think there must be a way to distill the 15 principles into 5-7 key ones which incorporate the spirit of the whole set. This may sound like a petty detail, but I suspect that it would be hard for someone not as versed in the concepts as the authors to sell the concept based on those 15. If you can't sell an idea, it  is that much harder to break down opposition to it. The concrete, concise way the authors describe how to implement Lean UX in various environments compensates for this, but since the book started out with an overview of principles, I was initially concerned about how the rest of the book would go. It is worth pushing past the principles section to learn the value of Lean UX, and techniques to use it effectively.

The book will be useful to managers, UX designers and developers and anyone wondering how UX can work in an agile environment. Since user experience is such a central part of the product definition it will also be useful to anyone who simply wants a better understanding of agile product development.
3225143
A must read for all IT professionals especially those transitioning to a DEVOPS model and want to better understand what that means.  Good reading.
363908
This book helped me a lot and was an easy read- I do wish the book was a few pages longer as I enjoyed the writing and learning style. I wanted to check out an introduction to the system, I was able to relate to many of the techniques discussed in the book. It focuses primarily on agile project management, but it does touch on waterfall and spiral management styles also. The best thing about this book is all the cases studies and examples of successful agile project management. I also appreciated the easy to-do activities that will help you to get successful results off your projects

I would recommend this book to get the basics of Agile Project Management. This book has been thoroughly researched and touches on all the key concepts.

I received a discount which may include free on this item for inspection, testing, and honest reviewing purposes. My review is based solely on my personal and my familys experience with it. I am in no way obligated to give a positive review and I am in no way financially compensated for the review.
561644
Michael has a solid grasp of the subject and understands that DevOps is more than just a series of scripts written and maintained by the (mostly) operations staff that tries to run with DevOps.  I'd recommend this book for anyone looking for a refreshing break from DevOps books written by sysadmins who think that DevOps stops at Puppet or Chef.
4963414
An easy and amazing read accompanied with great illustrations to learn and get started with Scrum with various essential practices. Highly recommended.

"Future of Scrum" cuts through the confusion in ever changing world of Scrum. I like the fact that Scrum is not just compared with waterfall but also with iterative development and currently prevalent agile methodologies. The authors have not just traced Scrum Framework through the years and identified the gaps, they have provided practical solutions. The book is filled with great insights, extensive and interesting illustrations, real world scenarios, underlying concepts and principles, and essential practices to ease Scrum adoption.

Currently Scrum framework is incomplete which makes its adoption really hard. As with any Scrum book, this book describes the way they have successfully done Scrum and how it can benefit from various XP and Lean practices. Thus, the book provides practical aspects beyond what the framework covers. This is great as it explains how Scrum can be scaled to program and enterprise levels without leaving gaps and also adopt various techniques to customize Scrum based on the needs to deliver optimum value with minimum effort.
1333707
Scaling Software Agility: Best Practices for Large Enterprises successfully answers the question how do you take what works in Agile and apply that to large enterprises and projects.  As a development manager who deals mostly in large scale projects I found the book an interesting analysis on how agile approaches can successfully be applied to large projects.  Many of the approaches described by Dean I had already discovered, some other approaches described provided new insights to managing large projects.

One of my biggest complaints with Agile these days is most people do not fully understand what it really means.  The end result is you get developers and tech leads arguing that they don't need to document their processes nor analyze their situation all they need to do is write code to get the benefits of Agile.  I would guess that Dean has encountered the same situation with his projects as a full 94 pages in the book describe very well the different flavors of Agile including XP, Scrum, RUP, and Lean.

After ensuring the reader has an understanding of Agile, the book then transitions into the meat of the topic by discussing the 7 Agile team practices that scale.

- Define/Build/Test Component team

- Two levels of planning and tracking

- Mastering the iteration

- Smaller, more frequent releases

- Concurrent testing

- Continuous Integration

- Regular introspection and adaptation to new approaches

The author points out how these traditional agile topics can be successfully applied to large scale organizations and projects.

The author then wraps up the book with an excellent description of how you work Agile into the overall Enterprise.  Pointing out how Agile actually provides more development structure which actually reduces cost, improves quality, and empowers developers to succeed.

Overall this is one of the best Agile software development management books I have read and would recommend this strongly to others.