Agility & Discipline Made Easy: litterature reference

Hello,

What other books have you used as reference,
and what is the 'non-agile' book you think
has had the most influence on your thoughts?
(e.g. mythical man month, code complete,
the pragmatic programmer, etc. etc.)

Kind regards,

Gian

Originally posted by Gian Franco Casula:
what is the 'non-agile' book you think
has had the most influence on your thoughts?
(e.g. mythical man month, code complete,
the pragmatic programmer, etc. etc.)

I'd say the pragmatic programmer is an "Agile book" - after all, both Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt are co-authors of the Agile Manifesto!

Gian,

it is hard for me to divide books into agile and non-agile. People have an interest in painting things black and white, and categorizig things as either agile, or not agile. To me, agile / non-agile is a continuum, not a black and white. There are tons of "agile" books written before agile was a concept... assuming that you use the definition of agile that I use (paraphrased from Craig Larman) "Agility is about adpting to change".

We have referenced close to 100 books in our book, and tried to make sure that we show similar thoughts from other people were appropriate.

Some books outside software arena that has helped me a lot include:
- Dale Carneie, How to win friends and infleunce people <basics on how to interact with others>
- Eliyahu Goldratt, The Goal <Constraint theory>
- Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Team <Building a culture>

Books on software include:
- Grady Booch: Object Solutions: Managing the Object-oriented Project
- Walker Royce: Software Project Management
- Brooks, Mythical Man-Month
- DeMarco and Lister, Waltzing with Bears <ability to address risk is a competitive advantage>
- Schwaber and Beedle, Agile Software Development with Scrum

Those are some examples, there are many more.

Dale Carneie, How to win friends and infleunce people

I wish the author is not some kind of dictator

Do you have any particular recommendations about Agile as a whole ?

Thanks Per,

Yes, 'adapting to change' is how interpret agility
as well. And I see agility more as a product of a
lot of groundwork that, consciously or not, sees
change as a common denominator.

Gian

- Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Team <Building a culture>

I just finished the "Five Dysfunctions", and it's really a good book. Now I only need our team to understand the concepts...

I guess the latter is meant to be "The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive"?

Iija,

good catch, you are right.

Cheers

/Per

Originally posted by Per Kroll:
it is hard for me to divide books into agile and non-agile. People have an interest in painting things black and white, and categorizig things as either agile, or not agile. To me, agile / non-agile is a continuum, not a black and white. There are tons of "agile" books written before agile was a concept...

I wholeheartedly agree.

the definition of agile that I use (paraphrased from Craig Larman) "Agility is about adpting to change".

That's probably a good use of the word "agile".

As far as I can tell, the *name* "Agile Software Development" refers to something more specific than that. Remember, it was coined by the signatories of the Agile Manifesto, who gave thereby a name to the set of values they shared (and to the set of principles that they agreed represent those values). I fear that people who think about the Agile movement as just "adopting to change" will miss a lot of potential value.

Iija, your point is well taken, agile software development is also about a cultural change, but that is one of many aspects of being agile (although an important).