A History of Agile cover

A History of Agile

Rating 3.0
Word count
46K words
Chapters
89
ISBN
9787899040560

Tags

Summary

The agile movement is in full swing, with new understandings and new interpretations of agility emerging one after another. The seventeen people who first set this movement in motion have since gone their separate ways in their careers. Some devote themselves to spreading the latest agile thinking, some quietly contribute within their own areas of expertise, and others choose to return to the roots of agility… Behind these little-known experiences, there is far more waiting to be discovered. Through this book, we hope to bring them back into the spotlight once more, to see what lives they have led and what stories they have to tell now that the halo of “co-author of the Agile Manifesto” has been set aside.

This book is suitable for agile practitioners and agile enthusiasts, as well as for anyone interested in learning about the history of software development and agile development and the experiences of the seventeen co-authors of the Agile Manifesto.

Editor's review

This book shifts the lens from the text of the Agile Manifesto to the seventeen people who signed it, tracing the paths they took afterward: some continued to spread agile thinking, some quietly worked away in their fields of expertise, and others chose to return to the roots of agility. Its value lies not in retelling methodology but in showing how a movement diverged, continued, and transformed through specific individuals. For agile practitioners, this “halo set aside” perspective helps explain where today’s many interpretations of agility come from and serves as a warning against dogmatic agile. The narrative follows personal experience as its main thread; it is compact and well suited to reading in segments between projects or on a commute. If you have ever wondered why agile so often goes astray in practice, this book offers not answers but a set of life stories to compare against.

Who it's for

A good fit for

  • Developers and managers currently practicing agile who want to understand its intellectual origins
  • Readers interested in software development history and stories of people in the industry
  • Technical leads who need to explain to their teams where agile came from
  • Readers who enjoy light personal reportage that can be read in fragments

Not a good fit for

  • Readers looking for concrete agile tools and operational templates
  • Readers expecting a systematic methodology textbook or certification exam preparation material
  • Readers with no familiarity with and no interest in the software development industry

Reading tips

  1. Read the original Agile Manifesto first, then compare it with how each figure in the book understood it differently.
  2. Read by person, one or two at a time, to better remember each one’s experience.
  3. When you reach a passage relevant to your own practice, note down transferable practices or reflections.
  4. After reading, share one or two figures’ choices with your team and discuss where your team stands on agile.

About the publisher

Zhejiang Publishing United Group Digital Media Co., Ltd. publishes across military studies, classical poetry, food, literary appreciation, documentary literature and fashion, with 33 titles in the collection. Representative books include Yagyu Munenori's The Life-Giving Sword, Wang Weiming's Sharing the Elegance: Thirty-Six Lectures on the Book of Songs, and two titles in the Xiao Riben series on tea ceremony and music as discussed by masters, as well as A Culture of Mahjong, Less in Life, More in Happiness and Indirect Procurement in Practice. Authors represented include Damishufang, Huang Liang, Wang Yongquan, Wang Sen and Ono. Judging from the titles held, the list balances the popularization of traditional culture with practical life topics for general readers. Owing to limited public information, further features of its publishing programme cannot be described here.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 序一
  3. 序二
  4. 序三
  5. 第一章 用一半的时间做两倍的事——Scrum之父Jeff Sutherland
  6. 军校与战争
  7. 学术研究
  8. 初入IT
  9. Scrum正式化
  10. “敏捷的生活”
  11. Jeff的书单
  12. 第二章 Scrum社区的悲剧性损失——Mike Beedle
  13. 创造“Enterprise Scrum”
  14. 提出“Agile(敏捷)”
  15. 第三章 笃定前行的勇者——Ken Schwaber
  16. 初识计算机
  17. 丰富的开发经验
  18. 他的创业
  19. Scrum问世
  20. Scrum联盟
  21. 致力发展Scrum
  22. 家人的支持
  23. 第四章 敏捷是人的天性——Arie van Bennekum
  24. 传统式工作
  25. 初识DSDM
  26. 《敏捷宣言》
  27. 集成敏捷转换模型
  28. 第五章 敏捷圈里的一股清流——Dave Thomas
  29. “敏捷是什么”
  30. “I am a programmer”
  31. “不要让自己成为一个标签”
  32. 第六章 也许这个人能拯救你的代码——Robert C. Martin
  33. 瀑布开发之旅
  34. 敏捷开发的萌芽
  35. 贯彻“匠艺精神”
  36. 第七章 从程序员、作家到摇滚乐手——Andy Hunt的多面人生
  37. 程序员Andy
  38. 作家Andy
  39. 出版商Andy
  40. 父亲Andy
  41. “斜杠中年”Andy
  42. 第八章 敏捷的破局之道——Martin Fowler
  43. 重构
  44. 《敏捷宣言》
  45. “Bliki”的诞生
  46. 第九章 用做面包的方式做敏捷——Alistair Cockburn
  47. 守
  48. 破
  49. 离
  50. 第十章 于细节中感知Agile MDA——Jon Kern
  51. “初识软件开发”
  52. “UML/MDA”
  53. “Agile UML/MDA”
  54. 第十一章 让建模和敏捷巧妙融合——Stephen J. Mellor
  55. Stephen J. Mellor与“敏捷”
  56. Stephen J. Mellor与“建模”
  57. Stephen J. Mellor与他的追求
  58. 第十二章 远离“人造敏捷”,回归敏捷本质——Ron Jeffries
  59. 编程工作
  60. Dark Scrum
  61. 敏捷之外
  62. 第十三章 务实的理想主义者——Kent Beck
  63. 极限编程的诞生
  64. 敏捷开发的诞生
  65. JUnit的诞生
  66. 第十四章 敏捷之峰的攀登者——Jim Highsmith
  67. “自适应软件开发”倡导者
  68. 《敏捷宣言》之旅
  69. 制定《相互依赖声明》
  70. 多产的作家
  71. 第十五章 敏捷是一种前进的方式——James Grenning
  72. 雪鸟会议
  73. 估算扑克
  74. 测试驱动开发
  75. 第十六章 敏捷多面手——Brian Marick
  76. 程序员
  77. 项目经理
  78. 测试人员
  79. 测试顾问
  80. 敏捷顾问
  81. 回归程序员
  82. 第十七章 Wiki(维基)背后的灵感来源——Ward Cunningham
  83. Cunningham定律与Wiki
  84. Cunningham与面向对象编程
  85. Cunningham与极限编程
  86. Cunningham与《敏捷宣言》
  87. 附录
  88. 后记
  89. 推荐语

FAQ

Is this book a tutorial on agile methodology?
No. It focuses on the life experiences and career choices of the seventeen co-authors of the Agile Manifesto after the fact; it is personal reportage and does not provide specific processes, tools, or implementation templates. For methodology, look to dedicated books.
Can someone who knows nothing about agile read it?
Yes, but with diminished returns. The choices of the people in the book are closely tied to the development of the agile movement; if you have no software development background at all, it is best to learn the basics of the Agile Manifesto first.
Is the content suitable for sharing within a team?
Yes. Each co-author’s different path is itself discussion material and can be used in team retrospectives or internal sharing sessions to prompt reflection on whether your team’s agile practice copies the form or responds to real problems.
Why is it worth paying attention to what happened later to these seventeen people?
Because agile has accumulated a great many new interpretations as it spread; looking back at the different choices of its original promoters helps readers distinguish original ideas from later additions and thus see today’s various claims about agile more clearly.

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About the author

禅道团队 Author · Chinese

The ZenTao Team is a Chinese development and maintenance team known in the industry for creating ZenTao, a domestic open-source project management software. The team advances the design and iteration of the software around the practical needs of project management and continues to invest in the open-source community. At present, the team has only one work in the library, A Brief History of Agile, which falls under programming and design. Public information is limited, and the team's membership and specific history cannot be confirmed. Based on the available information, its writing and publishing focus leans toward agile development and project management practice, presenting the methodology behind software tools to Chinese readers in an accessible form and offering some reference value for understanding the ecosystem of domestic open-source project management tools.

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