This is one of the most inspiring and efficient books I’ve ever read[1]. Agile mindset lives on every page of the book. The publication touches many PM areas and puts an agile cover on them. This might be a challenge to finish reading the book with no understanding the agile approach in IT projects. Agile thinking is revealed sometimes explicit, sometimes more subtle throughout the whole content.
Introduction
This book can be inspiring because the arguments for agile project are very reasonable and therefore very convincing. Evaluation of many tangible cases, principles and practices gives a foundation for work consciously in an agile environment. Some agile myths you’ve heard will be confirmed whereas other busted. We can get confirmation for both successes and failures in projects we’ve experienced.
Audience
The default target are people involved in project management, executives and project leaders. However, this book will be also valuable for those who want to know differences between traditional PM and agile PM, and also who are interested in living in real agile projects. Because of the practical and pragmatic attitude, the book is for agile practitioners, though. I strongly recommend to get to know with the whole content all the practitioners.
Style
The publication is written in a firm and concrete language. Author proofs his long and broad experience in the industry. Fullness of passion and deep investigation are revealed through the content. If you’re really excited in the agility climates, this book won’t get you bored.
Content
This publication explains what agility, simplicity and lean development are about. According to the author, the pragmatic approach and respect to people are the key factors to success with agile projects. People are the foundation to start with projects and execute them. Most of the content is devoted to agile leadership. In agile projects, every department and every participant takes responsibility for the success. There are many comparisons agile principles and practices to the traditional.
There is an interesting consideration about the “over” word in Agile Manifesto[2]. We also read about Declaration of Interdependence[3]. We learn about differences between complexity and uncertainty and who is responsible for which of these concerns. There is introduced the decoupling between governance and operational delivery in a organization. Usually only the later can organize work in the agile way. This part carefully touches those two organizational structures and teaches about cooperation between them. Another important considered distinction is between corrective and adaptive actions. Traditional PMs take corrective while agile practitioners chose adaptation activities.
The outstanding and significant part is an Agile Delivery Framework defining an agile project’s phases. This deeply illustrate how traditional and agile approaches vary each other.
The full title of the book says about: Creating innovative products. The must to succeed with agile is technical excellence. Valid innovation is an inevitable technical factor. Jim Highsmith tells us what should and what shouldn’t be a team’s goal.
Won’t learn about…
This publication is not about project management itself. Fields of estimation, budgeting, composing teams aren’t considered much here. Emphasis is particularly put on agile aspects of projects.
Summary
The book is full of vast knowledge and cases. It takes time to process it and incorporate. The content is broad and the target is broad too. Everyone needs to adapt what has learnt from the book to the actual project environment.
References
[1] http://jimhighsmith.com/books/
[2] http://agilemanifesto.org/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PM_Declaration_of_Interdependence