Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Foolish Assumptions 1
Icons Used in This Book 2
Beyond the Book 2
Where to Go from Here 3
Part 1: Understanding Agility 5
Chapter 1: Modernizing Project Management 7
Project Management Needed a Makeover 8
The origins of modern project management 8
The problem with the status quo 9
Introducing Agile Project Management 11
How agile projects work 14
Agile Project Management is Becoming Agile Product Management 16
Differences between managing a project versus developing a product 16
Why agile product development works better 18
Chapter 2: Applying the Agile Manifesto and Principles 21
Understanding the Agile Manifesto 21
Outlining the Four Values of the Agile Manifesto 24
Value 1: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools 25
Value 2: Working software over comprehensive documentation 26
Value 3: Customer collaboration over contract negotiation 28
Value 4: Responding to change over following a plan 29
Defining the 12 Agile Principles 30
Agile principles of customer satisfaction 32
Agile principles of quality 34
Agile principles of teamwork 36
Agile principles of product development 38
Adding the Platinum Principles 42
Resisting formality 42
Thinking and acting as a team 43
Visualizing rather than writing 44
Changes as a Result of Agile Values 45
The Agile Litmus Test 47
Chapter 3: Why Being Agile Works Better 49
Evaluating Agile Benefits 49
How Agile Approaches Beat Historical Approaches 54
Greater flexibility and stability 55
Reduced nonproductive tasks 57
Higher quality, delivered faster 60
Improved team performance 61
Tighter control 62
Faster and less costly failure 63
Why People Like Being Agile 64
Executives 64
Product development and customers 65
Management 66
Development teams 67
Chapter 4: Agility is about Being Customer Focused 69
Knowing Your Customers 69
Common methods for identifying your customer 71
Figuring Out the Problem Your Customer Needs to Solve 79
Using the scientific method 79
Failing early is a form of success 81
Defining customer-focused business goals 82
Story mapping 83
Liberating structures - simple rules to unleash a culture of innovation 83
Understanding Root Cause Analysis 84
Pareto rule 85
Five why's 86
Ishikawa (fishbone) 87
Part 2: Being Agile 89
Chapter 5: Agile Approaches 91
Diving under the Umbrella of Agile Approaches 91
Reviewing the Big Three: Lean, Scrum, and Extreme Programming 95
An overview of lean 95
An overview of scrum 100
An overview of extreme programming 105
Putting It All Together 107
Chapter 6: Agile Environments in Action 109
Creating the Physical Environment 110
Collocating the team 110
Setting up a dedicated area 112
Removing distractions 113
Low-Tech Communicating 114
High-Tech Communicating 116
Choosing Tools 118
The purpose of the tool 119
Tools that encourage the success of forced team dislocation 119
Organizational and compatibility constraints 121
Chapter 7: Agile Behaviors in Action 123
Establishing Agile Roles 123
Product owner 124
Development team member 128
Scrum master 130
Stakeholders 132
Agile mentor 134
Establishing New Values 134
Commitment 135
Focus 136
Openness 137
Respect 138
Courage 138
Changing Team Philosophy 139
Dedicated team 140
Cross-functionality 141
Self-organization 143
Self-management 144
Size-limited teams 146
Ownership 147
Chapter 8: The Permanent Team 149
Enabling Long-Lived Product Development Teams 149
Leveraging long-term knowledge and capability 150
Navigating Tuckman's phases to performance 151
Focusing on fundamentals 153
Creating a working agreement 154
Enabling Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose 155
Autonomy 155
Mastery 155
Purpose 156
Highly aligned and highly autonomous teams 157
Building Team Knowledge and Capability 157
Part 3: Agile Planning and Execution 159
Chapter 9: Defining the Product Vision and Product Roadmap 161
Agile Planning 162
Progressive elaboration 164
Inspect and adapt 165
Defining the Product Vision 165
Step 1: Developing the product objective 167
Step 2: Creating a draft vision statement 167
Step 3: Validating and revising the vision statement 169
Step 4: Finalizing the vision statement 170
Creating a Product Roadmap 171
Step 1: Identifying product stakeholders 172
Step 2: Establishing product requirements 173
Step 3: Arranging product features 175
Step 4: Estimating efforts and ordering requirements 176
Step 5: Determining high-level time frames 180
Saving your work 180
Completing the Product Backlog 180
Chapter 10: Planning Releases and Sprints 183
Refining Requirements and Estimates 183
What is a user story? 184
Steps to create a user story 186
Breaking down requirements 190
Estimation poker 192
Affinity estimating 195
Release Planning 197
Preparing for Release 200
Preparing the product for deployment 201
Prepare for operational support 201
Preparing the organization 203
Preparing the marketplace 204
Sprint Planning 205
The sprint backlog 206
The sprint planning meeting 207
Chapter 11: Working throughout the Day 215
Planning Your Day: The Daily Scrum 215
Tracking Progress 219
The sprint backlog 219
The task board 222
Agile Roles in the Sprint 224
Keys for daily product owner success 225
Keys for daily development team member success 226
Keys for daily scrum master success 227
Keys for daily stakeholder success 228
Keys for daily agile mentor success 228
Creating Shippable Functionality 229
Elaborating 230
Developing 230
Verifying 231
Identifying roadblocks 234
Information Radiators 235
The End of the Day 236
Chapter 12: Showcasing Work, Inspecting, and Adapting 239
The Sprint Review 239
Preparing to demonstrate 240
The sprint review meeting 241
Collecting feedback in the sprint review meeting 244
The Sprint Retrospective 245
Planning for retrospectives 247
The retrospective meeting 248
Inspecting and adapting 250
Part 4: Agility Management 251
Chapter 13: Managing a Portfolio: Pursuing Value over Requirements 253
Understanding the Differences in Agile Portfolio Management 254
Should we invest? 255
Factors for forecasting product investment returns 256
Managing Agile Product Portfolios 261
Should we continue investing? 266
Inspecting and adapting to the next opportunity 267
Chapter 14: Managing Scope and Procurement 269
What's Different about Agile Scope Management? 270
Managing Agile Scope 272
Understanding scope throughout product development 273
Introducing scope changes 275
Managing scope changes 275
Using agile artifacts for scope management 277
What's Different about Agile Procurement? 278
Managing Agile Procurement 280
Determining need and selecting a vendor 280
Understanding cost approaches and contracts for services 282
Working with a vendor 285
Closing a contract 286
Chapter 15: Managing Time and Cost 287
What's Different about Agile Time Management? 287
Managing Agile Schedules 289
Introducing velocity 289
Monitoring and adjusting velocity 291
Managing scope changes from a time perspective 297
Managing time by using multiple teams 298
Using agile artifacts for time management 298
What's Different about Agile Cost Management? 299
Managing Agile Budgets 300
Creating an initial budget 301
Creating a self-funding product 302
Using velocity to determine long-range costs 303
Using agile artifacts for cost management 306
Chapter 16: Managing Team Dynamics and Communication 307
What's Different about Agile Team Dynamics? 307
Managing Team Dynamics 309
Becoming self-managing and self-organizing 310
Supporting the team: The servant-leader 314
Working with a dedicated team 316
Working with a cross-functional team 317
Reinforcing openness 319
Limiting development team size 320
Managing product development with dislocated teams 321
What's Different about Agile Communication? 324
Managing Agile Communication 325
Understanding agile communication methods 325
Status and progress reporting 328
Chapter 17: Managing Quality and Risk 331
What's Different about Agile Quality? 331
Managing Agile Quality 334
Quality and the sprint 335
Proactive quality 335
Quality through regular inspecting and adapting 341
Automated testing 342
What's Different about Agile Risk Management? 345
Managing Agile Risk 348
Reducing risk inherently 348
Identifying, prioritizing, and responding to risks early 353
Part 5: Ensuring Success 355
Chapter 18: Building a Foundation 357
Organizational and Individual Commitment 357
Organizational commitment 358
Individual commitment 359
Getting commitment 360
Can you make the transition? 361
Timing the transition 362
Choosing the Right Pilot Team Members 363
The agile champion 363
The agile transition team 364
The product owner 365
The development team 366
The scrum master 366
The stakeholders 367
The agile mentor 367
Creating an Environment That Enables Agility 368
Support Agility Initially and Over Time 371
Chapter 19: De-Scaling across Teams 373
Multi-Team Agile Development 374
Making Work Digestible through Vertical Slicing 376
Scrum of scrums 376
Multi-Team Coordination with LeSS 380
LeSS, the smaller framework 380
LeSS Huge framework 381
Sprint review bazaar 382
Observers at the daily scrum 383
Component communities and mentors 383
Multi-team meetings 383
Travelers 384
Aligning through Roles with Scrum@Scale 384
The scrum master cycle 385
The product owner cycle 387
Synchronizing in one hour a day 388
Joint Program Planning with SAFe 388
Joint program increment planning 391
Clarity for managers 392
Disciplined Agile Toolkit 392
Chapter 20: Being a Change Agent 395
Becoming Agile Requires Change 395
Why Change Doesn't Happen on Its Own 396
Strategic Approaches to Implementing and Managing Change 397
Lewin 398
ADKAR's five steps to change 399
Kotter's eight steps for leading change 400
Platinum Edge's Change Roadmap 401
Step 1: Conduct an agile audit to define an implementation strategy with success metrics 403
Step 2: Build awareness and excitement 404
Step 3: Form a transformation team and identify a pilot 405
Step 4: Build an environment for success 407
Step 5: Train sufficiently and recruit as needed 408
Step 6: Kick off the pilot with active coaching 408
Step 7: Execute the Roadmap to Value 410
Step 8: Gather feedback and improve 410
Step 9: Mature and solidify improvements 411
Step 10: Progressively expand within the organization 412
Leading by Example 412
The role of a servant-leader in an agile organization 413
Keys for successful servant leadership 413
Avoiding Transformation Pitfalls 414
Avoiding agile leadership pitfalls 417
Signs Your Changes Are Slipping 418
Part 6: The Part of Tens 421
Chapter 21: Ten Key Benefits of Agile Product Development 423
Higher Customer Satisfaction 423
Better Product Quality 424
Reduced Risk 425
Increased Collaboration and Ownership 426
More Relevant Metrics 426
Improved Performance Visibility 427
Increased Investment Control 428
Improved Predictability 429
Optimized Team Structures 429
Higher Team Morale 430
Chapter 22: Ten Key Factors for Agile Product Development Success 431
Dedicated Team Members 431
Collocation 432
Done Means Shippable 433
Address What Scrum Exposes 433
Clear Product Vision and Roadmap 433
Product Owner Empowerment 434
Developer Versatility 434
Scrum Master Clout 435
Leadership Support for Learning 435
Transition Support 436
Chapter 23: Ten Signs That You're Not Agile 437
A Non-Shippable Sprint Product Increment 437
Long Release Cycles 438
Disengaged Stakeholders 439
Lack of Customer Contact 440
Lack of Skill Versatility 441
Automatable Processes Remain Manual 442
Prioritizing Tools over the Work 442
High Manager-to-Creator Ratio 444
Working around What Scrum Exposes 445
Practicing Faux Agile 446
Chapter 24: Ten Valuable Resources for Agile Professionals 449
Agile Project Management For Dummies Online Cheat Sheet 449
Scrum For Dummies 450
The Scrum Alliance 450
The Agile Alliance 450
International Consortium for Agile (ICAgile) 451
Mind the Product and ProductTank 451
Lean Enterprise Institute 451
Extreme Programming 452
The Project Management Institute Agile Community 452
Platinum Edge 452
Index 455
