Review Agile

Agile by Rini van Solingen and Maarten Kossen was originally published in Dutch. This first English version could be seen as a third edition (see below for the differences between this and the second Dutch edition).

The book starts with a warning that agile is more than a mindset, it is a philosophy, followed by 22 chapters, in which the authors show that it is easy to understand, but very difficult to apply at first.

In ‘The why, what when and how of agile’, we immediately encounter the beautiful submarine-dolphin metaphor (waterfall versus agile). Furthermore, several fundamental fallacies that agile solves. Agile is a mindset elaborated in 4 values and defined by 12 principles and made practical in dozens of approaches and implemented through infinite practices. Finally, using the Stacey matrix, we gain insight into when you should or should not adopt agile working.
‘Are we heading in the right direction’ offers seven questions to see how agile one is and also the usefulness of metrics such as velocity, happiness, value, energy, productivity, autonomy and focus.
In ‘Agile by finishing’, we get six practical measures to speed up work: make finishing central, cut up and detach, many and small releases, automate everything, utter independence and measure impact and returns.
In ‘Dangers of agile’, we are presented with eight dangers of agile working including agile working is harder than it looks and the requirements for a product owner are unrealistic. Seven misconceptions about agile are also elaborated such as, for example, documentation is no longer needed in agile and agile teams do not need management.
‘Scrum or agile?’ describes Scrum and brief explanations of Kanban, Scrumban, Scrum/XP.
‘Quality of agile’ gives seven reasons why agile enforces quality: rhythm and regularity, quality is explicit and fixed, continuous learning process, value as a steering instrument, no more big projects, automation of quality and autonomous teams. Furthermore, the authors explain the importance of the Definition of Done.
‘Agile transformations’ offers eight well-proven steps in practice: run an initial assessment, formulate the why and the urgency, work out a blueprint, determine the change strategy, create a transformation roadmap, execute the roadmap iteratively in sprints, meet and revise the roadmap and, as a final step, integrate through governance and culture and the paradox of controlled flexibility.
‘Pitfalls of agile transformations’ describes seven pitfalls including the importance of a new rhythm is not understood, fear of failure reigns and there is only attention for process.
‘Agile Culture’ offers seven measures to create an agile culture: focus on the why, change the context, put self-managing teams first, make culture explicit, be the culture yourself, work according to a fixed rhythm and stimulate servant leadership. How you can make your agile culture measurable is the last topic in this chapter
‘Agile leadership’ is about the ownership model with the two dimensions freedom and maturity and seven steps to create your own ownership model. We also find here a summary of Rini’s business novel The Beekeeper.
‘Management teams and agile’ answers the question what will change for management teams if they themselves switch to agile working too. The focus switches to prioritizing at strategic portfolio level, purpose- and mission-oriented positioning of the teams and implementing systemic improvements. What does that mean for all existing scheduled meetings? Several topics will disappear from the agenda and replaced by other tasks.
In ‘Agile governance’ you can find seven measures for agile governance such as work with stable teams and short iterations and plan the work not the people
‘Agile strategy and portfolio management’ describes that true agility also requires agile at a strategic and portfolio level. Seven recommendations for agile strategy and eight measures for agile portfolio management are given: set up short-cycled portfolio management, reduce the number of parallel initiatives, shift portfolio control to delivered value, express choices in terms of possible scenarios, options, and hypotheses.
‘Product ownerschip’ presents nine pitfalls for product owners such as wanting to do everything themselves, assuming mandate and saying ‘yes’ to everything. Furthermore, eight attitudes that successful product owners distinguish themselves from a their less successful colleagues.
‘Agile coaches’ gives answers which coach fits best in your organization depending on the need, the phase of the transformation, issues, and the corporate culture. Get clear what needs are in play, draw up a coach profile and determine which type of coach fits best. The author gives seven types of coaches: the artist, the evangelist, the Viking, the mediator, the professor, the networker, and the innovator.
‘Quality through autonomy’ explains seven measures to increase quality in agile such as automate all quality checks and remove third party dependences.
‘Agile at scale’ highlights seven focus points for scaling agile and explains SAFe including SAFe PI planning and its seven-step preparation. It includes brief paragraphs on Srum@Scale, Spotify and Enterprise Scrum too.
‘Large scale agile challenge’ gives seven root causes of failing agile and ten interventions to add control to large scale agile.
‘Agile sourcing and contracts’ offers eight questions about agile sourcing and six principles for agile structures in contracts as well as how these principles have been implemented at a software vendor CALVI. It ends with an explanation how to do an agile tender.
‘Agile and fixed price’ discusses whether agile can also be fixed-price and four associated measures for fixed-price agile are given.
The final chapter ‘agile estimating and planning poker’ explains how planning poker works and gives ten tips for planning poker.

Conclusion Beautifully formatted, calm soft colors and beautiful photos. Agile is a mindset and a philosophy and that splashes off the pages! The book is peppered with listings of pitfalls, roadmaps, thinking errors, reasons preconditions and dangers that greatly increase the practical applicability of this book. The descriptions of cases at bol.com, ANWB, Eneco consumers and software vendor CALVI help. If you are thinking of or just started an agile transition, this is a perfect book to be read by all involved. Of course, it is also excellent for learning about the agile mindset and philosophy.

Changes in comparison with the Dutch second edition:

The book now starts with a warning that agile is more than a mindset, it is a philosophy
Brief explanations of additional frameworks besides Scrum: Kanban, Scrumban, Scrum/XP
New chapter ‘Management teams and agile’ What will change for management teams if they themselves switch to agile working too? The focus switches to prioritizing at strategic portfolio level, purpose- and mission-oriented positioning of the teams and implementing systemic improvements. What does that mean for all existing scheduled meetings? Several topics will disappear from the agenda and replaced by other tasks.
Chapter about ‘Agile strategy’ is adjusted to include portfolio management too. Eight measures for agile portfolio management are discussed.
New chapter ‘Value steering for product owners’ What is value and eight measures to make steering on value concrete.
The chapter ‘Agile at scale’ describing SAFe now includes brief paragraphs on Srum@Scale, Spotify and Enterprise Scrum too.
The chapter ‘Agile opdrachtgeverschap’ is replaced by ‘Large scale agile challenges’ (seven root causes of failing agile at scale and ten interventions to add control to large scale agile)
The chapter ‘Agile contracts’ is expanded. It’s now called ‘Agile sourcing and contracts’. Two additional paragraphs with ‘Eight questions about agile sourcing’ and ‘How do you do an agile tender (derived from the removed ‘Agile opdrachtgeverschap’ chapter) are added’.