 Trade In this Item for up to £6.50
Trade in The Agile Samurai: How Agile Masters Deliver Great Software (Pragmatic Programmers) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £6.50, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Get ready to kick some software project butt. By learning the ways of the agile samurai you will discover:
how to create plans and schedules your customer and your team can believe in
what characteristics make a good agile team and how to form your own
how to gather requirements in a fraction of the time using agile user stories
what to do when you discover your schedule is wrong, and how to look like a pro correcting it
* how to execute fiercely by leveraging the power of agile software engineering practices
By the end of this book you will know everything you need to set up, execute, and successfully deliver agile projects, and have fun along the way. If you're a project lead, this book gives you the tools to set up and lead your agile project from start to finish. If you are an analyst, programmer, tester, usability designer, or project manager, this book gives you the insight and foundation necessary to become a valuable agile team member.
The Agile Samurai slices away the fluff and theory that make other books less-than-agile. It's packed with best practices, war stories, plenty of humor and hands-on tutorial exercises that will get you doing the right things, the right way.
This book will make a difference.
About the Author
As an experienced entrepreneur and former agile coach for ThoughtWorks, Jonathan Rasmusson has consulted internationally, helping others find better ways to work and play together. When not coaching his sons' hockey teams or cycling to work in the throes of a Canadian winter, Jonathan can be found sharing his experiences with agile delivery methods at his blog, http://agilewarrior.wordpress.com.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found this book to be a great introduction to agile. It is easy to read and has helpful illustrations and examples. That said I doubt experienced agile developers would find this book very useful. It's not very long and does not delve that deep into specific agile practices. Recommended for beginners.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
28 reviews
26 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Starter course for agile managers
26 July 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Over the last ten years, I've been working with teams with different degrees of commitment to the agile process, ranging from non-existing to quite strong. I was looking for a text that summarises agile methodology to help me formalise and articulate my own experiences, and of course to enhance my knowledge of some of the finer points of agile practices. I have to admit that this book did not meet my expectations. The first eighty pages up to chapter six are mostly about project inception and read like a prolonged introduction. From chapter six onwards, the author finally comes to the point and discusses the core concepts of agile processes, so the book does get better with increasing page numbers. Unfortunately, Scrum isn't discussed at all, instead Kanban is introduced in chapter eight. The discussion of typical technical processes, such as refactoring, TDD, and continuous integration is compacted into several brief chapters at the end of the book.
The writing style is very informal; the author uses a conversational tone throughout the book. Almost every page contains illustrations, which makes it an easy and quick read. The style of the book is comparable to the Head First books. It left me with the the impression that I sat in an all-day meeting where someone said a lot of intelligent things to which everyone else agreed. Unfortunately, not many of these things seemed radically new or thought-provoking, so I fear I won't remember many of them next month. Of course, this may be entirely my own fault. I prefer a more formal, concise, old-school language. I also prefer dense and meaty text books with lots of diagrams, numbers and formulas. In return, I can dispense with stick figures, pictograms, and even with Master Sensei (a guru character used in the book). I feel that a lot of the deeper and more complex issues of agile project management have simply been left out.
To be fair, it must be mentioned that I probably do not fall into the target group for which this book was written. It is more appropriate as an introductory text for people who are new to agile project management, or even new to the entire business of project management. Think "trial lesson" and "starter course".
The writing style is very informal; the author uses a conversational tone throughout the book. Almost every page contains illustrations, which makes it an easy and quick read. The style of the book is comparable to the Head First books. It left me with the the impression that I sat in an all-day meeting where someone said a lot of intelligent things to which everyone else agreed. Unfortunately, not many of these things seemed radically new or thought-provoking, so I fear I won't remember many of them next month. Of course, this may be entirely my own fault. I prefer a more formal, concise, old-school language. I also prefer dense and meaty text books with lots of diagrams, numbers and formulas. In return, I can dispense with stick figures, pictograms, and even with Master Sensei (a guru character used in the book). I feel that a lot of the deeper and more complex issues of agile project management have simply been left out.
To be fair, it must be mentioned that I probably do not fall into the target group for which this book was written. It is more appropriate as an introductory text for people who are new to agile project management, or even new to the entire business of project management. Think "trial lesson" and "starter course".
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Humor and How to do Agile
2 Dec 2010
Format:Paperback
I knew I was going to like The Agile Samurai from the first page:
"Agile is a way of developing software that reminds us that although computers run the code, it's people who create and maintain it."
Jonathan Rasmussen, the Other JR, has written a great, short, to-the-point book about how to move a project to agile. From the beginning "Deliver something of value every week" to the Agile Principles sprinkled throughout the book, such as "The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams" to the conversations between the student and the Sensei, you can learn how to move your project from where it is to agile.
Some pieces I particularly like are:
1. All of Chapter 4, Seeing the Big Picture, where Jonathan suggests we need an elevator pitch for our project. I'm stealing this idea right away.
2. Chapter 8: Agile Planning, Dealing with Reality. After a humorous side trip with Murphy and his Law, Jonathan introduces us to burndown, burnup, and team velocity charts.
3. Chapter 15: Continuous Integration: Making it Production-Ready. What if you only had one hour to deploy your product. Could you? Jonathan walks you through what you need to do to make the code production ready.
Jonathan has great advice about how to know how agile you are:
"And don't forget. It's not about "being" agile. It's about building great products and delivering world class service to your customers."
This is a great book. If you are thinking of starting an agile journey, do yourself a favor and get this book. You will not be sorry.
"Agile is a way of developing software that reminds us that although computers run the code, it's people who create and maintain it."
Jonathan Rasmussen, the Other JR, has written a great, short, to-the-point book about how to move a project to agile. From the beginning "Deliver something of value every week" to the Agile Principles sprinkled throughout the book, such as "The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams" to the conversations between the student and the Sensei, you can learn how to move your project from where it is to agile.
Some pieces I particularly like are:
1. All of Chapter 4, Seeing the Big Picture, where Jonathan suggests we need an elevator pitch for our project. I'm stealing this idea right away.
2. Chapter 8: Agile Planning, Dealing with Reality. After a humorous side trip with Murphy and his Law, Jonathan introduces us to burndown, burnup, and team velocity charts.
3. Chapter 15: Continuous Integration: Making it Production-Ready. What if you only had one hour to deploy your product. Could you? Jonathan walks you through what you need to do to make the code production ready.
Jonathan has great advice about how to know how agile you are:
"And don't forget. It's not about "being" agile. It's about building great products and delivering world class service to your customers."
This is a great book. If you are thinking of starting an agile journey, do yourself a favor and get this book. You will not be sorry.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Agile in the wild
20 Oct 2010
Format:Paperback
What this book isn't: boring theory about agile methodology and history of "how did it all start". This book is neither source of THE secret of agile software development.
What this book is: a great and valuable source of reality connected simple facts that would allow you to re-evaluate how you build your software. Inception Deck is a great tool to kick off a project. Project planning and execution from agile point of view and with developers in mind are chapters that logically explain how to address everyday issues on traditional projects. This book is about achieving targets by going with simplicity.
What this book is: a great and valuable source of reality connected simple facts that would allow you to re-evaluate how you build your software. Inception Deck is a great tool to kick off a project. Project planning and execution from agile point of view and with developers in mind are chapters that logically explain how to address everyday issues on traditional projects. This book is about achieving targets by going with simplicity.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
