Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Cohn)) 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

I bought 5 books on Scrum, including this one and I expected all of them to be a bit of a slog through jargon and dry descriptions. Not so.This one is very well written. He is just plain practical in his recommendations. None of the fanatical "you must do this" of extreme programming, he simply makes the case for each step/process based on his experience. This one is particularly useful for me. I've been on a scrum team for over a year, recently became a scrum master and this book answers a lot of my questions about what should be going on. I just attended Mike's certified scrum master training and this book had me well prepared. Between the book and the class, I'm not even vaguely concerned about taking the exam.I actually can't think of any downsides to this book. it's well reasoned, well laid out, well written, well edited, thoroughly covers all the topics and it's from a guy who still spends a lot of time in the trenches, so his observations and recommendations are pretty current. This one will end up on my "frequently referenced" shelf.

This book was published in 2009 (nearly ten years ago) and was one of the most authoritative works on how to adopt scrum at the time. I wanted to read it to see the context of one of the first mentions of the testing pyramid. These approaches (scrum and testing pyramid) have become the bedrock of current Dev(Sec)Ops development techniques. I rate it 3 out of 5 now because even though modern-day techniques have evolved, it is still worth reading for its fundamentals.

Mike gets into the difficult leadership and organizational issues of implementing agile development and proposes practical approaches based on his extensive experience. Mike reveals how difficult it can be to implement agile thinking and execution. He illustrates the old adage that people want to see changes but they personally don't want to change. Mike spends a lot of pages recommending his solutions to these kinds of issues.Anyone serious about implementing agile in their organization needs to read this book and draw up a realistic game plan which must involve executive commitment and excellent team leadership skills. It is true that agile is really a simple idea but very hard to do well because it really blows everything around it to bits. This books prepares you for this scenario if at all possible.Mike's list of references at the end of his book is extensive and alone is worth the price of the book.

I am relatively new to intense management of an integrated IT department. Having spent the bulk of my career in general and financial management, I recently found myself in an interim leadership capacity in an IT department where Scrum was the development management methodology, and IT was the backbone of the organization. Cohn's book provides extremely useful insights into the use and strengths (as well as objections) of Scrum methodology. Particularly useful and interesting to this reader was his chapter on the Balanced Scorecard and how to integrate Scrum into a BSC environment. The book is long, but a relativele easy read. You will need a modicum of knwledge of the process before fully being able to appreciate Cohn's insights, but that should be easy to get OTJ or with other resources. A must have on the exec's bookshelf if you are managing (general managing or IT managing) in an Agile environment.

Doing my part of testing and coaching in agile context I found this book the best in making it all work. I mean with this that you can get lots of theory on the iconic books but this one goes to the meat and grit of everyday life in an Agile team. While most Agile books are targeted at the manager who has to make the transition, this one is for the team, the people. Just wish the testing section would have been larger as I could have used this book's approach to fill in where the Crispin/Gregory otherwise wonderful book "Agile Testing" falls short: how do you do it in the end (but admitting here and now that the later "More Agile Testing" is even better on this regard).Long-time readers of Cohn's blog will see common themes raised but here they are expanded and integrated into a coherent package. Recommended to all who find the old "colors" book or similar to fall short in practical terms. You will find in this book the friendly, down-to-earth voice of Mike Cohn that one has met already in his blog.

Not bad, but a little too conversational and wordy for me at times. I'm struggling to pull much practical advice from the content. I believe there are nuggets of truth in here, and seasoned advice from the right author, but it's not wowing me. I think the right editor would turn it into a gem.My other recommendation would be to focus more on agile principles and less on anecdotal dialog. It's hard to keep my attention when so much of the content is hard to apply.That said, I don't know of a better book on the content. It's a tougher topic to write on than a technology. If you don't see another option, give this a shot.

Mike Cohn has written a highly useful reference for applying scrum and agile methods in the real world. I will keep this book within arm's reach since it is useful in a wide variety of situations. The book provides practical advice on everything from overcoming resistance to change to applying scrum on globally distributed teams. Mike imparts a wealth of knowledge and experience in this book. He also cites many valuable references and experts along the way, providing well-rounded advice. I particularly enjoyed Part I, which provides excellent guidance on adopting agile methods and then extending the process and principles across the wider organization.If you and your organization are new to scrum, you'll need some additional references on the basics; the author assumes readers already know the fundamental principles and practices of agile development. However, even if you're adopting agile for the first time, you'll quickly encounter many of the challenges that aren't described in those basic book and you'll need this book to help move past those difficulties.

Good starter book for those starting off with agile. Albeit the agile movement is all about stating the obvious. This could do with condensing into a summary book for quick reference-sometimes feels a little verbose at explaining quite simple concepts. I've found other peripheral skill sources (such as team psychology and coaching, or theory of constraints) more useful in expanding beyond the basics. Good for someone new to agile.

Excellent Agile book. Well written and structured. Great book for beginners and intermediate level. Use it as a reference book now.

Full of tips for going about an agile transition, ended up buying two, one for me one for a colleague.Have been referring back to this again and again throughout the transition.Well written and easy to digest.

There are a few Scrum / Agile / Lean books which everyone on a software team should read and this is one of them. The information in this book is like gold-dust. It's been learned the hard way by the author! The information is well thought out and presented. Buy it now!

Excellent companion to the course