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· 504 ratings · 46 reviews

Start your review of Learning Agile: Understanding Scrum, XP, Lean, and Kanban

"Learning Agile" was an awesome book. It introduces Scrum, XP, lean and kanban nicely with good examples an narratives. This was not your serious "animal series" O'Reilly book. In addition to numerous cartoons and diagrams, I even spotted a Head First style image and two xkcd comics.

What's called Chapter 1 introduces agile followed by what would traditionally be the introduction.Interesting seeing those two reversed. It works though as it shows the points of view of different readers. I like how each chapter ends with FAQs, exercises you can today and ideas to learn more. The key point boxes sprinkled through each chapter were helpful as well.

I'm particularly impressed with how they handled the names of characters in Chapter 2. When I saw the characters introduced I groaned thinking it was one of those books where I would have to keep track of who these people are. But there was enough context for it to be obvious. And when they referred to them at the end of the chapter, their titles were restated. The authors even told us at the end of the story that we wouldn't be seeing them again. After that, I trusted that the narratives would be easy to follows and wasn't disappointed.

I liked the phrases "better-than-not-doing-it" and "magical thinking". For me, the test of an agile or process book is whether I finish with ideas of new things to try. And I do.

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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for writing this review on behalf of CodeRanch.

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Definitely recommended peace of reading on Agile topic. Helps to create right agile mindset. Good work on covering agile Values, Principles and Practices as well as for each methodology mentioned. Full with practical recommendations. Provide solid theoretical basis.

I've enjoyed reading this book. It is an excellent introduction into Agile for beginners. If you've used some Agile approaches before, but you are not able to explain its formal ideas to other people then this book is for you.
It will not impress experienced Scrum Masters and Coaches, but it will work as an excellent guide into an Agile world for beginners.
Every chapter has a list of related reading, so I've fulfilled my reading list for the next several months for sure.

The Russian edition was no

The Russian edition was not perfect, and I got the impression that translators made it a bit boring. I'd recommend you to read it in English.

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Apr 16, 2015 سامح السيد rated it really liked it

I already have some experience with agility, but this book added some value to me.
I liked the following topics/ideas:
- The importance of agile values, and principles in achieving astonished results
- We can still see agile "better-than-nothing" results if we follow practices only without having the mindset behind them
- Coaching tips everywhere in the book
- Kanban methods for process improvement
- The authors story-telling style of writing

I think the book will deserve 5 stars if it contains a secti

I think the book will deserve 5 stars if it contains a section/chapter about agile criticism.

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Apr 09, 2017 Tung Dao rated it really liked it

A good book for fundamentals of Agile. Each chapter goes with format:
- Description
- Example (Act)
- Key notes
- What can I do
- Coach
However book is unnecessarily long. Writer could have written much shorter.

Jul 24, 2015 Paul rated it liked it

Read about half of it, selectively. Good stuff.

Apr 18, 2020 Greg Burrell rated it really liked it

A good overview of Agile methodologies. Most companies seem to practice their own variation of Scrum or XP with maybe some Lean thrown in. Its easy to pick and choose the practices you like and ignore the ones that seem too hard or don't feel like a good fit for your team. This book explains the practices that go with each methodology, why they're important, and the pitfalls you might encounter if you choose to ignore them. This is a good book if you're looking to review your team practices (and A good overview of Agile methodologies. Most companies seem to practice their own variation of Scrum or XP with maybe some Lean thrown in. Its easy to pick and choose the practices you like and ignore the ones that seem too hard or don't feel like a good fit for your team. This book explains the practices that go with each methodology, why they're important, and the pitfalls you might encounter if you choose to ignore them. This is a good book if you're looking to review your team practices (and we should all do that periodically). You'll probably discover you may have started out intending to do Scrum but then grew lax in some practices. Those pain points you're feeling may be the result. This book also did a great job of not pitting Kanban against Scrum and XP because its almost orthogonal to those. I did, however, come away unclear on the exact differences between Scrum and XP. I had to go back, reread, and flip back and forth between chapters to get a better picture of that. ...more

In the last 10 years, Agile & associated practices have risen from obscurity to dominate how many businesses manage work. Though written in the early days of Agile, this book gives a thorough explanation of its concepts. Due credit is given in the book to other approaches, and this matters because many companies implement a blend of concepts for their particular workflow.

Just after a theoretical concept is covered, there's a mock-runthrough featuring a recurring cast. They show the pure folly o

Just after a theoretical concept is covered, there's a mock-runthrough featuring a recurring cast. They show the pure folly of waterfall project management. These stories highlight how humans react to new work structures, and caution you not to think that Agile will simply work because you start using its techniques. They help show how a team acts differently when they have an Agile Mindset.

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Apr 13, 2020 Vino Sen rated it really liked it

I've really enjoyed reading this book. Primarily, it focuses on Scrum, XP, Lean and Kanban models along with their values and practices. There are plenty of examples and real-time situations to help understand agile development.

Each chapter are well structured and goes with the format:
- Description
- Example (Actors)
- Key Points to take away
- FAQ
- What you can do today
- Where you can Learn more - References
- Coaching Tips

First 3 chapters explain the general phenomenal of Agile and its principles
C

First 3 chapters explain the general phenomenal of Agile and its principles
Chapter 4 and 5 --> Scrum Specific
Chapter 6 and 7 --> XP
Chapter 8 --> Lean
Chapter 9 --> Kanban
Chapter 10 --> Agile Coach Tips

I liked the phrases "better-than-not-doing-it" and "magical thinking.

Highly recommended! Happy reading !!!

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Sep 05, 2017 Ivaylo Petrov rated it it was amazing

For me it was a well-structured overview of Agile. You can learn things from it whether you are just trying to see what Scrum and XP are all about or you already have some knowledge about that and want to help your team get "better-than-not-doing-it results". A good number of external pointers can help you get even more information, should you want to dig deeper.

This book helped me fill some gaps and made me think more about my company's current process. Definitely worth the read :)

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Read after six months in a scrum or kanban environment

When you're ready to go back to the fundamentals, this book puts the team level Agile system in perspective.

Very helpful explanations of the most used agile flavours that will give you the mental building blocks to understand them all.

Read after six months in a scrum or kanban environment

When you're ready to go back to the fundamentals, this book puts the team level Agile system in perspective.

Very helpful explanations of the most used agile flavours that will give you the mental building blocks to understand them all.

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Apr 13, 2018 Oksanalagovska rated it really liked it

This book provides you with the good explanation of general Agile philosophy and main Agile software development approaches such as Scrum, Extreme Programming, Lean and Kanban. This well-structured guide, written in a light style, will be useful for those who begin to study Agile or already apply it in practice

Aug 02, 2018 Pablo Margreff rated it really liked it

Good book to introduce and give a detailed overview about most common agile methodologies. Gived me a awesome crash course about XP, the methodology which I had the lower domain.

The stories/cases used to reinforce the lessons make the sessions harmful and looks a little bit forced situations. On my point of view we don't need to read them.

Good book.

Good book to introduce and give a detailed overview about most common agile methodologies. Gived me a awesome crash course about XP, the methodology which I had the lower domain.

The stories/cases used to reinforce the lessons make the sessions harmful and looks a little bit forced situations. On my point of view we don't need to read them.

Good book.

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Good introduction to agile

The book goes over several different agile methodologies along with their values and practices. There are plenty of examples and charts to help understand agile development. I did feel like the book was more directed at people who are using a waterfall process, while we already use agile at work and I wanted to just learn more.

Apr 18, 2020 Mims Zainal rated it really liked it

Agile is an easy read. I practiced agile but this book gave a better perspective on why we implement the daily stand-up, retrospective etc in place. I had a better overview of agile after reading this one. Now inspired to put all the theory into practive. This is a challenge. All and all a good book to understand Agile in general.

Dec 05, 2019 David rated it liked it

Probably would been more helpful to me a few years ago. But useful to help refresh myself on background. A lot of the examples were very antagonistic and honestly anxiety inducing though which was a shame.

Jul 31, 2017 Ken rated it really liked it

Learning Agile covers every framework that falls underneath the Agile umbrella. Very insightful and informative!

Easy to read, concise and concepts are well explained.

Excellent induction into subject

Dec 16, 2018 Aaron rated it really liked it

Overall a good book with a fair amount of detail for the well known agile methodologies. Only the Kanban chapter seemed a bit rough and not as polished as the others.

A good overview of various agile methods.

Apr 12, 2021 Diogo rated it it was amazing

Excellent book! A lot of information about SCRUM, XP, Lean and KANBAN, with real case scenarios.

Being a first book on Agile development, I found it to be quite interesting. Definitely recommended.

Covers lots of topics in depth

This is an easy to read, which covers many aspects of agile. I like it also recommended other areas for personal improvement.

Jun 23, 2019 Andrew Quan rated it really liked it

This is a great book to start if you're interesting in "becoming agile." I've learned various agile practices before but all were piece-meal, and I've taken a 1-day Scrum course also. The teams I was working with all used some agile practices but it didn't really feel like we were benefiting a whole lot from them. This book is really great at explaining why some teams fail at fully going agile and gives great perspective from all different types of roles we face in real-world working conditions. This is a great book to start if you're interesting in "becoming agile." I've learned various agile practices before but all were piece-meal, and I've taken a 1-day Scrum course also. The teams I was working with all used some agile practices but it didn't really feel like we were benefiting a whole lot from them. This book is really great at explaining why some teams fail at fully going agile and gives great perspective from all different types of roles we face in real-world working conditions. Though some of these examples were contrived, I felt the purpose–and success–of this book was to get across the core values of agile, not so much nailing down every case and edge case.

All in all, a very concise and easy to follow book on how to adopt agile practices today and to set ideals for what your team can become in the future.

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Simply excellent

Honestly, I thought I knew Scrum. Had vague ideas about XP. Turns out I knew the practices but not the values that let you know when you've implemented them properly. The book covers all of that very well - and common pitfalls when you don't implement properly! Highly recommended.

Only exception was the Lean area. Simultaneously felt repetitive yet shallow. I have sympathy - it's a tough subject. What I did like was that the Kanban section did an excellent job of relating human-or

Simply excellent

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Jun 18, 2016 Shenyu rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Shenyu by: goodreads

This book gives you an overview of all the agile concepts.
I think the most important keyword of this book is MINDSET. It uses a lot of narratives as well as FAQs to show you that agile mindset is much important than agile practices. Without agile mindset, a daily scrum will be as same as a normal ritual, XP will never work because programmers treat unit test as a burden. you can only receive Better-Than-Not-Doing-It results.
Here're some other important keywords mentioned in this book which impre This book gives you an overview of all the agile concepts.
I think the most important keyword of this book is MINDSET. It uses a lot of narratives as well as FAQs to show you that agile mindset is much important than agile practices. Without agile mindset, a daily scrum will be as same as a normal ritual, XP will never work because programmers treat unit test as a burden. you can only receive Better-Than-Not-Doing-It results.
Here're some other important keywords mentioned in this book which impressed me: "last responsible moment", "commitment", "get done done" and "self-organization". ...more

Feb 03, 2015 Alex rated it it was amazing

An excellent distillation of a broad but thoughtfully-curated selection of Agile topics and methodologies. I thought the authors did a particularly good job of interleaving different approaches to the subject matter, and were more careful in their use of repetition to reinforce key points and/or similarities across methodologies than other books I've read on similar subjects. Feels like a very useful reference manual in addition to being an interesting read through. An excellent distillation of a broad but thoughtfully-curated selection of Agile topics and methodologies. I thought the authors did a particularly good job of interleaving different approaches to the subject matter, and were more careful in their use of repetition to reinforce key points and/or similarities across methodologies than other books I've read on similar subjects. Feels like a very useful reference manual in addition to being an interesting read through. ...more

Jun 05, 2018 Stein Karlsen rated it it was amazing

Excellent introduction and overview of the different agile and lean methodologies. Great resource to check if your implementation achieves the benefits of the methodology, and what you can do to receive a better return of your investment.