Agile Project Management
Published January 19th, 2010 Under Books | Leave a Comment
The fact that this book is already at his second edition after a first publication in 2004 says something about its value. In one of his definition of Agile, Jim Highsmith says, “Agility is the ability to balance flexibility and stability”. I will say that his book balances nicely high level thinking and a pragmatic approach. The book provides a framework for running agile projects and gives also insight in some more neglected related topics like managing projects portfolios or measuring the success of Agile projects.
The author starts by defining what Agility is and emphasizes that Agile is about “delivering value over meeting constraints”. The book describes the Agile Project Management (APM) framework, discussing its values and presenting the phases (Envision, Speculate, Explore, Adapt, and Close). The core values of the APM are:
* Delivering Value over Meeting Constraints
* Leading the Team over Managing Tasks
* Adapting to Change over Conforming to Plans.
All these aspects are covered with both a high level vision (after all values are values), but also by describing daily project activities: Key points that will help you understand the author message are put in evidence. Example: A coaching leader’s attitude is reflected in the question “How can I help you deliver results?” The micro-manager’s attitude is reflected in the question, “Why isn’t task 412 done yet?”
The final parts of the book deal with topics related to Agile project management: scaling, project portfolio management, measuring performance and fostering innovation. This is definitely a book that I will recommend to every people involved in project management, agile or not. I always think that learning Agile practices should be preceded by understanding Agile values. This book provides insightful material for values and practices.
Related web sites:
* Jim Highsmith Web site
* Agile Project Leadership Network
Reference: “Agile Project Management”, Second Edition, Jim Highsmith, Addison-Wesley, 392 pages
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The Process of Software Architecting
Published December 1st, 2009 Under Books | Leave a Comment
This book presents the influence of architecture in the software development process. The interesting aspect of this book is that is it a thoroughly presentation of the architecture role in the software development activities, not only at initial analytic stage but also at the subsequent tasks like software testing or configuration management. The book is very well structured and is certainly an excellent text book for students or for developers that are interested in getting an extensive presentation of software architecture. What I missed in the book is the presence of more “real life user stories” examples that could relate the different topics presented in the book. There is a case study used to implementing the practices, but it remains abstract to me. People looking to have more insight of what is “enough architecture” will not find some ideas on how to get the answer in this book.
Website of the book: http://www.processofsoftwarearchitecting.com/
Reference: “The Process of Software Architecting”, Peter Eeles and Peter Cripps, Addison-Wesley, 405 pages,
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Domain-Specific Modeling
Published October 28th, 2009 Under Books | Leave a Comment
Domain-specific modeling (DSM) is an approach articulated around three elements: a specific modeling language, code generation and a domain framework. The book authors work for a company that has been proposing a DSM tool since the last century. This make them first-hand experts on the topic, but you have also to remind which side they are when they talk about DSM compared to other approaches. The authors are conscious of this and discuss it openly, so that the reader can be aware of the situation. This being said, this book is an excellent and convincing presentation of what is domain-specific modeling, what it is not and how it relates to generic modeling approaches like UML. It contains more than 100 pages of real case studies showing how you can use DSM in different contexts (embedded software, insurance, etc). Finally, a final part guides you in details through the different steps needed to create a DSM solution. This part contains an important decision guide that will allow you to evaluate if your domain is suited for a DSM effort.
The book is very well written and is certainly a must read for every software developer who could be involved in the development of software that has some “product” attributes, that is software projects that involve repeated development efforts based on a common domain knowledge. It will also allow you to think and understand more deeply what is modeling and how you can reuse the initial investments in understanding the domain and creating the first products.
The website of the book is http://www.dsmbook.com/
Reference: “Domain-Specific Modeling – Enabling Full Code Generation”, Steven Kelly and Juha-Pekka Tolvanen, John Wiley & Sons, 427 pages
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Stand Back and Deliver
Published October 5th, 2009 Under Books | Leave a Comment
This is a book about leadership. This is not an easy topic to discuss in a book, but this one gives you some tools that will help you to assess situations and act on them. I think that the authors give a very good definition of leadership when they explain their title: “Standing back does not imply abdicating all responsibility, but rather requires leaders to perform a careful balancing act between stepping back to let the right people in the organization do their thing and stepping up to provide steering when the team has strayed off course”. The deliver part exists because the most important measure of success is defined as delivering value to the business.
The first chapter presents the key principles that will be discussed in the book: Purpose – Collaborate – Delivery – Decisions. The chapter about purpose presents a model that allows classifying activities or businesses function according to their market differentiation and mission critical dimensions. The chapter on collaboration emphasizes the importance of letting the people succeed. In the delivery part, the authors propose a model to assess projects using their uncertainty and complexity dimensions. The next chapter exposes ideas on how and when to make decisions. After discussing all these principles, the authors offer you some hints on how to start putting them in practice to change your organization. Finally, a last chapter offers a short summary of all the tools and models discussed in the book. All the concepts are supported by many cases that show how the issues and ideas discussed relate to practical situations.
Despite grouping material from four different authors, this book has a good cohesion and provides a very smooth reading experience. It is certainly recommended to everyone that has to solve business problems through projects in organizations. Reading it, I was even thinking that it contains a lot of very good material that you can apply to your own personal development and projects.
Reference: “Stand Back and Deliver”, Pollyanna Pixton, Niel Nickolaisen, Todd Little, Kent McDonald, Addison-Wesley, 162 pages
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Agile Coaching
Published August 21st, 2009 Under Books | Leave a Comment
There was a time when software developers worked with consultants that will do things for their company or teach some technical knowledge. Agile approaches have brought forward another type of people: coaches. According to Rachel Davies and Liz Sedley, a coach doesn’t tell you what to do, rather she shows you how she thinks you might do things and hope that it will help you to improve your situation. She leads by example. It is not easy to write a book on this type of topic. The authors recognize this situation and manage to achieve a good balance between general advice and practical usage reports.
The first part of the book is concentrated on the basics of coaching and communicating in software project. The software development curricula are often weak on “people” skills and you are not always lucky to find the right person as a supervisor when you get out of school. I think I was lucky, thank you Claude ;o) The second part goes through the different activities of a typical Agile project (daily meeting, user stories definition, planning, etc.) and discuss how coach can help a project team to achieve its goals. Each chapter has a final checklist and the book is also full of “personal stories” from the authors that enhance the theoretical advice, applying it on real situations.
Although the title of the book and some of its content might make you think that its value is limited to an agile context, I will recommend this book to every person that has some supervision function in software development organizations and to every developer who believe than acquiring additional “people” skill might improve its work environment. Just changing the way you talk with colleagues could lead to having more sunnier days at the office.
Disclaimer: Rachel Davies has been a (valuable) contributor to Methods & Tools since 2005
Reference: “Agile Coaching”, Rachel Davies and Liz Sedley, Pragmatic Bookshelf, 250 pages, to be released August 28, 2009
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