Head First Agile A Brain-Friendly Guide to Agile and the PMI-ACP Certification

272 Pages·2017·52.56 MB·English

by  Andrew Stellman

Praise for Head First Agile
Your name could be here! We’re looking for early praise from project managers,
developers, business anaylsts, and anyone else who’s read the early release of
our book. Contact us at [e-mail].
Praise for Head First Agile
Your name could be here! We’re looking for early praise from project managers,
developers, business anaylsts, and anyone else who’s read the early release of
our book. Contact us at [e-mail].
Praise for other Head First books
“With Head First C#, Andrew and Jenny have presented an excellent tutorial on learning C#. It is very
approachable while covering a great amount of detail in a unique style. If you’ve been turned off by
more conventional books on C#, you’ll love this one.”
—Jay Hilyard, software developer, coauthor of C# 3.0 Cookbook
“I’ve never read a computer book cover to cover, but this one held my interest from the first page to the
last. If you want to learn C# in depth and have fun doing it, this is the book for you.”
— Andy Parker, fledgling C# programmer
“Going through this Head First C# book was a great experience. I have not come across a book series
which actually teaches you so well…This is a book I would definitely recommend to people wanting to
learn C#”
—Krishna Pala, MCP
“Head First Web Design really demystifies the web design process and makes it possible for any web
programmer to give it a try. For a web developer who has not taken web design classes, Head First Web
Design confirmed and clarified a lot of theory and best practices that seem to be just assumed in this
industry.”
—Ashley Doughty, senior web developer
“Building websites has definitely become more than just writing code. Head First Web Design shows you
what you need to know to give your users an appealing and satisfying experience. Another great Head
First book!”
—Sarah Collings, user experience software engineer
“Head First Networking takes network concepts that are sometimes too esoteric and abstract even for highly
technical people to understand without difficulty and makes them very concrete and approachable. Well
done.”
— J onathan Moore, owner, Forerunner Design
“The big picture is what is often lost in information technology how-to books. Head First Networking keeps
the focus on the real world, distilling knowledge from experience and presenting it in byte-size packets
for the IT novitiate. The combination of explanations with real-world problems to solve makes this an
excellent learning tool.”
— R ohn Wood, senior research systems analyst, University of Montana
Other related books from O’Reilly
Learning Agile
Beautiful Teams
Applied Software Project Management
Making Things Happen
Practical Development Environments
Process Improvement Essentials
Other books in O’Reilly’s Head First series
Head First PMP
Head First C#
Head First Java
Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (OOA&D)
Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML
Head First Design Patterns
Head First Servlets and JSP
Head First EJB
Head First SQL
Head First Software Development
Head First JavaScript
Head First Physics
Head First Statistics
Head First Ajax
Head First Rails
Head First Algebra
Head First PHP & MySQL
Head First Web Design
Head First Networking
Head First Agile
Wouldn’t it be
dreamy if there were
a book to help me learn
about agile that was
more fun than going
to the dentist? It’s
probably nothing but a
fantasy…
Andrew Stellman
Jennifer Greene
Head First Agile
by Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene
Copyright © 2016 Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472.
O’Reilly Media books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions
are also available for most titles (http://my.safaribooksonline.com). For more information, contact our corporate/
institutional sales department: [phone] or [e-mail].
Series Creators: Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates
Editor: Nan Barber
Design Editor: Louise Barr
Cover Designers: Karen Montgomery, Louise Barr
Production Editors: Melanie Yarbrough
Indexer: Bob Pfahler
Proofreader: Rachel Monaghan
Page Viewers: Quentin the whippet and Tequila the pomeranian
Printing History:
January 2017: First Edition.
The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. The Head First series designations,
Head First Agile, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
PMI-ACP, PMP, and PMBOK are registered marks of Project Management Institute, Inc.
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as
trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media, Inc., was aware of a trademark
claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps.
While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and the authors assume no
responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.
ISBN: TBD
[LSI] [TBD]
Dedication coming soon...
the authors
Thanks for buying
our book! We really love
…because we know
writing about this stuff, and
you’re going to do
we hope you get a kick out of
great work with
reading it…
agile!
Andrew
Photo by Nisha Sondhe Jenny
Andrew Stellman is a developer, architect,
speaker, agile coach, project manager, and
expert in building better software. Andrew
is an author and international speaker, with
top-selling books in software development and
project management, and world-recognized Jennifer Greene is an agile coach,
expert in transforming and improving development manager, business analyst, project
software organizations, teams, and code. He manager, tester, speaker, and authority on
has architected and built large-scale software software engineering practices and principles.
systems, managed large international software She’s been building software for over twenty
teams, and consulted for companies, schools, and years in many different domains including media,
corporations, including Microsoft, the National finance, and IT consulting. She’s worked with
Bureau of Economic Research, Bank of America, teams of excellent developers and testers to tackle
Notre Dame, and MIT. Andrew’s had the tough technical problems and focused her career
privilege of working with some pretty amazing on finding and fixing the habitual process issues
programmers during that time, and likes to think that crop up along the way.
that he’s learned a few things from them.
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meetings of software engineers, architects, and project managers.
Check out their website, Building Better Software, at http://www.stellman-greene.com.
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table of contents
Table of Contents (Summary)
Intro xxv
1 What is agile? Principles and practices ?
2 Organizations, constraints, and projects: In good company ?
3 The process framework: It all fits together ?
4 Project integration management: Getting the job done ?
5 Scope management: Doing the right stuff ?
6 Time management: Getting it done on time ?
7 Cost management: Watching the bottom line ?
8 Quality management: Getting it right ?
9 Human resource management: Getting the team together ?
Table of Contents (the real thing)
Intro
Your brain on agile. Here you are trying to learn something, while here
your brain is doing you a favor by making sure the learning doesn’t stick. Your
brain’s thinking, “Better leave room for more important things, like which wild
animals to avoid and whether naked snowboarding is a bad idea.” So how do you
trick your brain into thinking that your life depends on knowing enough to really
“get” agile—and maybe even get through the PMI-ACP certification exam?
Who is this book for? xx
We know what you’re thinking xxi
Metacognition: thinking about thinking xxiii
Here’s what YOU can do to bend your brain into submission xxii
Read me xxvi
The technical review team xxvii
Acknowledgments xxviii
ix