Being Agile

Book excerpt: Being Agile is your roadmap to successfully transforming your organization to an Agile culture. Veteran agile coach Mario Moreira teaches new adopters how to implement a robust Agile framework to derive from it the maximum business benefit in terms of customer value, revenue, and employee engagement. Agile is a ubiquitous watchword in the corporate world, but only a minority of companies understand and practice what they pay lip service to. Too many content themselves with half-baked approximations such as Fragile (fragile Agile), ScrumBut (Scrum but not the practices), and Scrum Fall (mini-waterfalls in the sprints). Moreira shows maturing early adopters how to bridge the chasm between going through the motions of doing Agile and genuinely being Agile. After a high-level synopsis of Agile’s values and principles, methodologies (including Scrum, Kanban, DSDM, Leam, VFQ, and XP), and roles, Moreira plunges into the nitty-gritty of how to apply the ready, implement, coach, and hone (RICH) deployment model to all phases of a project in such a way as to embody and inculcate agile values and principles at the team level and promote agile transformation across your organization's culture. What you’ll learn Agile professionals, project managers, and middle, senior, and executive management in software engineering and development divisions and enterprises who read this book will learn how to: Evaluate team candidates for traits, skills, behavior, and attitudes diagnostic of an Agile mindset Set up Agile planning tools and framework Map stakeholder engagement Validate ongoing application of Agile best practices Adapt Scrum teams and techniques for various needs and conditions Who this book is for The primary readership for this book comprises Agile professionals, product managers, and middle, senior, and executive management in software engineering and development divisions and enterprises. The secondary readership includes business analysts agile and software configuration managers. Table of Contents Getting Started Crossing the Agile Chasm Business Benefits of Being Agile Importance of Customer Engagement Importance of Employee Engagement Foundations of Agile Ready, Implement, Coach, Hone (RICH) Deployment Framework Motivations for Moving to an Agile Culture Achieving an Agile Mindset Evaluating Executive Support and Team Willingness Treating Agile as a Transformation Project Adapting to Agile Roles and Responsibilities Evaluating Agile, Engineering, and Team Capability Establishing Agile Measures of Success Constructing a Scalable Agile Framework Establishing an Agile Education Program Creating a Customer Validation Vision Writing User Stories and Grooming the Backlog Working with Story Points, Velocity, and Burndowns Constructing Done Criteria to Promote Quality Considering Agile Tools within an ALM Framework Implementing, Coaching, and Honing Activities Adapting Governance and Performance Reviews Three Case Studies in Adopting Agile