Book Notes: Agile Business - Bob Gower

Agile Business: A Leader's Guide to Harnessing Complexity is an engaging introduction to Agile Development from a business perspective.

Summary

Title: Agile Business: A Leader's Guide to Harnessing Complexity

Author: Bob Gower

Themes: Agile; Culture; Management; Teams; Leadership; IT

Year: 2013

Publisher: Telemachus Press

ISBN: 1939337534, 9781939337535

Pages: 260

Agile Business: A Leader's Guide to Harnessing Complexity contains practical real-world advice from over 30 coaches, executives, developers and managers who are actively using Agile in their organizations and helping others achieve Agility.

"... Building the wrong thing not only wastes time and money, it demoralizes the creative, intelligent and in-demand team members who are working on the products, thus making hiring and retention more difficult..."

Written in a way that can be easily grasped and put to use whether you have previous Agile experience or not. Whether you're looking for an introduction to the topic or want to deepen your own practice, Agile Business will help you understand and apply Agile principles to your business and your life.

Agile design practices encourage us to test our ideas quickly using tools like rapid prototyping, and to see our products in their natural habitat. Something as easy as hosting a weekly, catered lunch during which your team watches customers actually use the product, can build team empathy and generate new ideas. I’ve never seen a team that does this enough.

"... We know Agile is good for business, but we also believe it’s good for people. Agile practices, with their emphasis on problem solving and efficiency, have the potential to help solve some of the toughest problems facing humanity. And we believe Agile is an important part of creating meaningful job opportunities for more people..."

As more organizations adopt agile, new ideas are being developed to improve planning, roadmapping and innovation. These pioneers are taking the process of building products to the next level through a deep understanding of the methods and principles of agile

Chapters of the Book:

Foreword, by Brad Feld

A Message from the Founder, by Ryan Martens

Preface

How to Use This Book

Introduction

1. Build the Right Thing

Build the Right Thing

Agile and Innovation

The Role of the Product Owner

The Gift of Meaningful Work

How Large Organizations Can Act More Like Startups

The Minimum Viable Product

Start with Why

Story Mapping

Information Radiators

Paper Prototyping

2. Build the Thing Right

Build the Thing Right

Agile Test and Engineering Practices

Scrum and Kanban

Scrum or Kanban?

Reciprocal Commitment

The Art of the Hackathon

Agile Metrics

Continuous Integration and Delivery

The Value of Play

Flow

Tools

Why Define Done?

3. People, Not Resources

People, Not Resources

Agile Managers

The Agile Project Manager

Agile Organizations—Daring Greatly

Create Your Own Reality

Everyone Be Agile: Nine Extraordinary Benefits Nondevelopment Departments Enjoy

Facilitating the Right Environment

Why Coaching?

Agile in Distributed Environments

The Importance of Space

Co-located Teams

Sustainable Pace

Audio, Video, and Virtual Team Realities

Social Contracts

A Culture of Great Meetings

Servant Leadership

Trusting in Conflict

4. Agile Steering

Agile Steering

Agile Portfolio Steering

Funding and Accounting in an Agile World

Planning Releases and Tracking Progress

Scaling Agile: Fractals of Innovation

Steering the Agile Enterprise with Kanban Thinking

Retrospectives: : The Heartbeat of Continuous Improvement

Agile Contracts

Stickies, Sharpies, and Information Radiators

The Daily Standup

The Sprint Review and Demo

5. Transform Your Organization

Transform Your Organization

Flow-Pull-Innovate—Your Agile Journey

A Path to Agility

Agile Measurement

The Importance of Vision and Culture

Agile Selling: Pulling Sales Forward

Agile Rollout Planning: It’s the Planning, Not the Plan

How to Launch a Team

When Your Organization Is Waterfall and You’re Not

Your Next Steps

Story of the Book

The Agile Manifesto

Author and Contributor Bios

References

Other contributors that shared some knowledge in this book:

- Alex Pukinskis

- André Dhondt

- Ann Konkler

- Ben Carey

- Brendan Walsh

- Brent Barton

- Charles Ferentchak

- Chris Browne

- Eric Willeke

- Isaac Montgomery

- Jean Tabaka

- Jeff Ellis

- Jessica Kahn

- Jim Tremlett

- John Michael Martin

- Julie Byrne

- Julie Chickering

- Karl Scotland

- Ken Clyne

- Larry Maccherone

- Laura Burke

- Liz Andora

- Mark Kilby

- Michael Ball-Marian

- Niki Kohari

- Rachel Weston Rowell

- Rick Simmons

- Ronica Roth

- Ryan Martens

- Sean Heuer

- Stephanie Tanner

- Steve Lawrence

- Tamara Nation

- Todd Olson

- Zach Nies

The Author, Bob Gower, is passionate about innovative products and the people who make them. An author, speaker, and consultant, Bob has spent more than 15 years leading complex, creative projects across myriad sectors. He’s currently an Agile Coach for Rally Software, where he specializes in enterprise-level Agile transformations.

Thank you! I hope you enjoyed!

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