Agile Development in the Real World

This book is a practical guide for new agile practitioners and contains everything a new project manager needs to know to get up to speed with agile practices quickly and sort out the hype and dogma of pseudo-agile practices.The author lays out the general guidelines for running an agile project with the assumption that the project team may be working in a traditional environment (using the waterfall model, or something similar).

Agile Development in the Real World conveys valuable insights to multiple audiences:

• For new-to-agile project managers, this book provides a distinctive approach that Alan Cline has used with great success, while showing the decision points and perspectives as the agile project moves forward from one step to the next. This allows new agile project managers or agile coaches to choose between the benefits of agile and the benefits of other methods.
• For the agile technical team member, this book contains templates and sample project artifacts to assist in learning agile techniques and to be used as exemplars for the new practitioner’s own project.
• For the Project Management Office (PMO), the first three chapters focus on portfolio management. They explain, for the agilists’ benefit, how projects are selected and approved, and why projects have an inherent "shelf-life" that results in hard deadlines that may seem arbitrary to traditional technical teams.

What You Will Learn:

• How and why the evolution of project management, from PM-1 (prescriptive) to PM-2 (adaptive) affects modern 21st century project management.
• How sociology (stakeholder management), psychology (team dynamics), and anthropology (organizational culture) affect the way software is developed today, and why it is far more effective
• A clear delineation of what must to be accomplished by all the roles (PM, BA, APM, Developer, and Tester), why those roles are needed, and what they must do
• Step-by-step guide for a successful project based on studies and the author’s own experiences.
• Specific techniques for each role on the development team, both in the pre-iteration and iteration cycles, of product development. The appendices contain templates that the team could use or modify to tailor their own agile processes specific to the team, project, and organization.

About the Author

Alan Cline is a certified professional in agile practices (ACP) and project management (PMP). He is a recognized leader in both the private and public sectors, with 30+ years experience in leading organizations to success; focused on delivering value and customer satisfaction. Known for applying cutting-edge practices in both traditional and agile styles, and industry-wide concepts, theory and experience, Al has led teams and mentored leaders to deliver quick results for short-term objectives while building toward strategic goals.