** Business Book Awards 2023 Finalist ** If you have an interest in agility but you’re not working specifically in IT, this book is for you. It shows how agile principles can be adapted and applied in almost any sector to manage projects more effectively. It explains what agility looks like for ALL aspects of the management of projects - from leadership, roles and responsibilities through planning, implementation, change control, risk management and more. Whether you’re a new or seasoned project professional, or an executive or senior manager seeking to generate value by bringing agility beyond the IT department, Adrian Pyne shows you how an organization can become agile for projects, and what that journey looks like. Based on over 30 years’ experience and drawing on case studies from multiple sectors, this is the essential guide to managing projects more effectively at a time when agility and sustainability matter more than ever. A project professional for over 30 years, Adrian Pyne has led change in 11 industries and in the public sector, in the UK and abroad. The author of books on programme management and agile governance and assurance, he has contributed to the evolution of programme, portfolio and PMO standards and is a regular speaker, visiting lecturer, blogger and researcher.

Satisfy Stakeholders by Solving the Right Problems, in the Right Ways In Beyond Requirements, Kent J. McDonald shows how applying analysis techniques with an agile mindset can radically transform analysis from merely “gathering and documenting requirements” to an important activity teams use to build shared understanding. First, McDonald discusses the unique agile mindset, reviews the key principles underlying it, and shows how these principles link to effective analysis. Next, he puts these principles to work in four wide-ranging and thought-provoking case studies. Finally, he drills down on a full set of techniques for effective agile analysis, using examples to show how, why, and when they work. McDonald’s strategies will teach you how to understand stakeholders’ needs, identify the best solution for satisfying those needs, and build a shared understanding of your solution that persists throughout the product lifecycle. He also demonstrates how to iterate your analysis, taking advantage of what you learn throughout development, testing, and deployment so that you can continuously adapt, refine, and improve. Whether you’re an analysis practitioner or you perform analysis tasks as a developer, manager, or tester, McDonald’s techniques will help your team consistently find and deliver better solutions. Coverage includes Core concepts for analysis: needs/ solutions, outcome/output, discovery/delivery Adapting Lean Startup ideas for IT projects: customer delivery, build–measure–learn, and metrics Structuring decisions, recognizing differences between options and commitments, and overcoming cognitive biases Focusing on value: feature injection, minimum viable products, and minimum marketable features Understanding how analysis flows alongside your project’s lifecycle Analyzing users: mapping stakeholders, gauging commitment, and creating personas Understanding context: performing strategy (enterprise) analysis Clarifying needs: applying decision filters, assessing project opportunities, stating problems Investigating solutions: impact and story mapping, collaborative modeling, and acceptance criteria definition Kent J. McDonald uncovers better ways of delivering value. His experience includes work in business analysis, strategic planning, project management, and product development in the financial services, health insurance, performance marketing, human services, nonprofit, and automotive industries. He has a BS in industrial engineering from Iowa State University and an MBA from Kent State University. He is coauthor of Stand Back and Deliver: Accelerating Business Agility (Addison-Wesley, 2009).

The Agile Self-Assessment Game is used by teams and organizations to self-assess their agility. Playing the game enables teams to reflect on their own team interworking, discover how agile they are and decide what they can do to increase their agility to deliver more value to their customers and stakeholders. This is the first book specifically about Agile Self-assessments. In this book, Ben Linders explains what self-assessments are and why you would do them, and explores how to do them using the Agile Self-assessment Game. He's also sharing experience stories from people who played the game. This book is based on his experience as a developer, tester, team leader, project manager, quality manager, process manager, consultant, coach, trainer, and adviser in Agile, Lean, Quality and Continuous Improvement. It takes a deep dive into self-assessments, viewing them from different perspectives and provides ideas, suggestions, practices, and experiences that will help you to do effective agile self-assessments with your teams. The book is aimed at Scrum masters, agile coaches, consultants leading agile transformations, developers and testers, project managers, line managers, and CxOs; basically for anyone who is looking for an effective way to help their agile teams improve and to increase the agility of their organization. With plenty of ideas, suggestions, and practical cases on Agile Self-assessments, this book will help you to apply assessments and help teams to improve. Note: The agile coaching cards needed to play the games described in the book can be downloaded for a nominal fee at benlinders.com/downloads.

The Agile Pocket Guide explains how to develop products, services, and software quickly and efficiently, without losing the main components of the framework so effective in streamlining the creating of these products and for making positive change within a company. It includes The basic tennets of the Scrum framework How to apply the processes and steps required to become agile The dynamics of a successful agile environment The very basics of Scrum and how to employ them quickly Practical questions to ask the Team Leader as well as the Team How to build an environment of communication and collaboration for the entire organization

Beyond Agile provides a broad but strong foundation for agile practices, but it doesn't stop there. After grounding us in solid theory, Beyond Agile takes us beyond the typical business book, diving deep into the ongoing practices of real teams doing real work. The stories bust many myths about agile and shares the human stories of real people and their struggles, trials and triumphs. Each story makes the complex and evolving topic of agile in the workplace engagingly clear and simple. Beyond Agile is a great, foundational and inspiring book. Dave Gray, Author of Gamestorming and The Connected Company Software development is knowledge work. Knowledge work is always an evolving art. Beyond Agile examines 10 companies, mostly in the tech world, but also in innovative automotive and business consulting, that have actively evolved their processes. Using tools from Lean, Agile and other schools of management thought, these companies have actively engaged in continuous improvement. These stories are stories of success, failure, and success again. These are real stories of real businesses creating real products. No story is devoid of mis-steps. No magic bullets, other than understanding, are provided. Collecting stories from several continents and countries, these case studies cover the global evolution of an entire industry. This book is a must-read for anyone involved with knowledge workers, software developers and IT shops that seem unmanageable.

The world of software development methodology has become a bit of a cottage industry. Philosophical divisions and dogma laced with branding and driven by profit motive are commonplace. Re-invention replaces integration due to a lack of collaboration. A pragmatic perspective however would be to leverage all past experience in context when approaching modern software engineering challenges. For example, issues faced by the Agile community related to agility at scale and technical debt have already been addressed before by other communities. SDLC 3.0 represents the rationalization of modern software engineering methods into a Complex Adaptive System of practices. It leverages Control Systems Engineering theory to explain Agile beyond a tacit and anecdotal basis such that the pace of modern practice adoption can accelerate. With "more for less" now being as important as "being agile," it articulates blueprints of the Lean IT Enterprise. Who should read this book: . - If you are an Agilist and tired of having to pause when asked the question "What is Agile.." - If you are a Traditionalist and you would like to learn why Agile is a better approach - if someone would just explain "why it works" in a credible way.. - If you are an Executive and you are faced with a fiduciary duty to influence IT investment outcomes. A blueprint of a Lean IT Enterprise is valuable to you. . - If you are a Researcher and you are tired of fads and brands, and want to ground Agile in applied science and rigorous mathematics. . - If you are a Methodologist and you believe that the cottage industry must stop, and that we must get past fragmentation and tacit or anecdotal evidence.. - If you are a Practitioner and you can't afford to pontificate on which "pure" wholesale method to leverage when faced with the "realities on the ground." . - If you are an independent thinker, a centrist. - If you are a pragmatist. Winner 2010 Dr. Dobbs Jolt Productivity Award

On average, 50 per cent of software projects fail to deliver on time or on budget. At least 20 per cent are cancelled before completion or renounced as failures. Project failure costs the global economy nearly $200 billion a year. We're in the midst of a 'project failure crisis' and something needs to be done. Following the journey of software development through the 20th and 21st centuries, this book outlines a new, post-Agile methodology for creating great digital solutions in a way that's faster, better and less wasteful. Learn from some of the world's best companies and discover how you can go Beyond Agile.

Practitioners operate in a necessary reality. We work in a space where project performance is above theory or methodology. In the best environments, delivery and an affirmative culture are what matter most. In the worst, it is politics and survival. In any environment we are challenged to adopt best practices and adapt our style to the environment in which the project is occurring. This is a book about those best practices and practitioner experiences. It is a must have reference and guide book for project managers, general managers, business leaders and project management researchers. This book is the result of the hard work and dedication of more than 35 authors from more than 15 countries across four continents. It brings a diversity of experience, professional and personal. It includes practitioners, leading academics, renowned theorists and many who straddle those roles. The chapters cover experiences in software, large scale infrastructure projects, finance and health care, to name a few. The chapters themselves take many forms. Check out the table of contents to get a deeper sense of the topics included. All provide real-world guidance on delivering high performing projects and show you how to build, lead and manage high performing teams. The Practitioners Handbook of Project Performance is complete in itself. It can also be an enticing start to an ongoing dialogue with the authors and a pleasurable path to get deeper into the subject of project performance. Find your favorite place to begin learning from these chapters, to begin taking notes and taking away nuggets to use in your everyday. But don’t stop there. Contact information and further resources for this diverse team of experts authors are found throughout. The Practitioners Handbook is a modern guide to the leading edge of project performance management and a path to the future of project delivery.

This book goes beyond the paint by numbers approach, transcending the "how" of project management to the "what" and "why," which is critical for leaders of change. — Dr. Joel B. Carboni, President and Founder, GPM Global and President, IPMA-USA Project Management beyond Waterfall and Agile presents a flexible, universal, and integrated three-dimensional model for managing projects, the Customizable and Adaptable Methodology for Managing ProjectsTM (CAMMPTM ). By tailoring and customizing the model to a specific industry or organization and by adapting it to a function or project classification, this model can be used to manage any project. CAMMPTM can also be used both in a traditional or an Agile environment. CAMMPTM integrates leading concepts on competence, processes, and sustainability. The model’s three dimensions are project lifecycle, project management processes, and, finally, competence, sustainability, and best practices. The book explains how to integrate these dimensions to manage a project across the three dimensions and the project stages. CAMMPTM is a stage-gate process, which is vital for project success. The current state of practice in project management is not sustainable. The root causes of this problem include a lack of standardized processes, missing methods or methodological approaches, and no real organizational system for managing projects. This book introduces a system to address these shortcomings. It focuses on the elements of this system, which is a practical and systematic methodological approach for managing and delivering all types of projects. CAMMPTM integrates the best learning from the various global associations in the field. The book distills the experience and knowledge of a practitioner working in different roles for more than three decades on various types of projects of all sizes and complexities. It is a practical book by a practitioner writing for practitioners.

The message conveyed in this work is that agility can be implemented anywhere. Accordingly, ten guidelines are presented for the adoption of agility to enable us to cope with changes in our lives, in our teams, and in our organizations. Since the authors advocate agility, the content is presented in the form of concise standalone chapters, allowing the reader to focus on the specific topic they wish to adopt in order to become agile.