Announcing our upcoming book: Head First Agile

~ Andrew Stellman ~ Leave a comment

Head First Agile cover

We are extremely excited to announce our next book, Head First Agile, will be published by O’Reilly Media.

Have you been reading about agile, and want to learn more? Do you think that agile might help you and your team build better software? You’re not alone. Agile has gotten really popular with software teams because the ones that have “gone agile” often talk about the great results they get. The software they build is better, which makes a big difference to them and their users. Not only that, but when agile teams are effective, they have a much better time at work! Things are more relaxed, and the working environment is a lot more enjoyable.

Head First Agile is a brain-friendly guide to understanding agile concepts and ideas. Here’s what you’ll find inside:

  • Understanding the agile mindset: You’ll learn what an agile methodology is, and why agile methodologies that seem so different can still all be agile
  • Managing projects better with Scrum: This popular and effective lightweight methodology can help you build better, more valuable software, and make your team and your users happier
  • Engineering better code with XP: Its focus on code and programming can help you and your team build better systems
  • Continuously improving with Lean and Kanban: You’ll learn how they can help your whole team get better every day

We have two goals for Head First Agile. First and foremost, we want you to learn agile. But we also are focused on our readers looking to pass the PMI-ACP certification, so not only does the book have 100% coverage of the material for the PMI-ACP exam, it also includes end-of-chapter exam questions, a complete exam study guide, exam tips, and a full-length practice PMI-ACP exam—everything that you need to pass the exam.

Head First Agile will be available at retailers in Fall 2016.

An interview with the man behind Bowie

~ Andrew Stellman ~ Leave a comment

When David Bowie passed away, the world lost a really special musician. The greatest artists rarely achieve everything they’ve done alone, and Bowie was no exception. I sat down with his main producer and collaborator in this interview with Tony Visconti [pdf] from our book, Beautiful Teams. The book is an exploration of what makes teams tick, through interviews and stories from people who worked with both extraordinary and ordinary teams. Being from the world of software, Jenny and I concentrated on software teams. But we wanted to go beyond software to try to discover some basic truths about teams. When I reached out to Tony, I expected interesting anecdotes, but I was really surprised (and pleased!) with how much his stories about working with rock stars reminded me of the other stories in the book.

Here’s the interview in its entirety, along with an introduction featuring another highly insightful mind, Tim O’Reilly. I hope you find this sheds light not just on the mind of a brilliant musician and producer, but also on your experiences with your own teams.

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