The Art of Agile Practice: A Composite Approach for Projects and Organizations

The Art of Agile Practice: A Composite Approach for Projects and Organizations presents a consistent, integrated, and strategic approach to achieving "Agility" in your business. Transcending beyond Agile as a software development method, it covers the gamut of methods in an organization—including business processes, governance standards, project management, quality management, and business analysis—to show you how to use this composite approach to enhance your ability to adapt and respond to evolving business requirements. The book is divided into three parts:

1. Introduces Agility and identifies the challenges facing organizations in terms of development and maintenance approaches
2. Presents Composite Agile Method and Strategy (CAMS) as a carefully constructed combination of process elements and illustrates its application to development, business management, business analysis, project management, and quality
3. Includes two Agile case studies, a comprehensive index, definitions of key acronyms, and appendices with a current list of Agile methods and interview summaries

The book describes relevant metrics for the entire CAMS lifecycle and explains how to embed Agile practices within formal process-maps in projects. Filled with figures, case studies, and tables that illustrate key concepts, the text is ideal for a two- or three-day training course or workshop. It is also suitable for a 13-week education course for higher degree students that includes process discussions and consideration of Agile values at both software and business levels. The chapters are organized to correspond roughly to such lectures with an option to choose from the case study chapters.

About the Author

Bhuvan Unhelkar (BE, MDBA, MSc, PhD; FACS) has spent close to three decades in the information and communication technologies (ICT) industry as a strategist as well as a hands-on professional. As the founder of MethodScience.com, he has demonstrated consulting and training expertise in business analysis, software engineering, Agile processes, mobile business, and Green IT (environment) in banking, financial, insurance, government, and telecom verticals. He is an adjunct associate professor with the University of Western Sydney, Australia (where he had formed the Mobile Internet Research and Applications Group—MIRAG) and a visiting faculty at the University of Technology, Sydney, MS University, Baroda, India, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Hartford Graduate Campus), CT, USA. He has authored 17 books and several executive reports (Cutter, Boston, USA), supervised numerous PhD students, and has extensively presented and published papers and case studies. Dr. Unhelkar is a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society, life member of Computer Society of India, president of the Rotary Club in St. Ives, Sydney (and a Paul Harris Fellow), a Discovery volunteer at NSW parks and wildlife, and a previous TiE mentor.

Dr. Unhelkar obtained the PhD degree in the area of "object orientation" from the University of Technology, Sydney, in 1997. Subsequently, he has designed and delivered course units such as Global Information Systems, Object Oriented Analysis and Design, Business Process Reengineering, and IT Project Management to the industry as well as across universities in Australia, China, and India.