The Agile Samurai

How Agile Masters Deliver Great Software

by Jonathan Rasmusson

Here are three simple truths about software development:

1. You can’t gather all the requirements up front.
2. The requirements you do gather will change.
3. There is always more to do than time and money will allow

Those are the facts of life. But you can deal with those facts (and more) by becoming a fierce software-delivery professional, capable of dispatching the most dire of software projects and the toughest delivery schedules with ease and grace.

Get ready to kick some software project butt. By learning the ways of the agile samurai you will discover:

• how to create plans and schedules your customer and your team can believe in
• what characteristics make a good agile team and how to form your own
• how to gather requirements in a fraction of the time using agile user stories
• what to do when you discover your schedule is wrong, and how to look like a pro correcting it
• how to execute fiercely by leveraging the power of agile software engineering practices

By the end of this book you will know everything you need to set up, execute, and successfully deliver agile projects, and have fun along the way.

If you’re a project lead, this book gives you the tools to set up and lead your agile project from start to finish. If you are an analyst, programmer, tester, usability designer, or project manager, this book gives you the insight and foundation necessary to become a valuable agile team member.

The Agile Samurai slices away the fluff and theory that make other books less-than-agile. It’s packed with best practices, war stories, plenty of humor and hands-on tutorial exercises that will get you doing the right things, the right way.

This book will make a difference.

• Errata, typos, suggestions

• Source Code (zip file)

Releases:

• P5.0 2014/08/07
• P4.0 2012/08/19
• P3.0 2012/07/24
• P2.0 2011/02/11

Full Table of Contents

Preface

• Introducing Agile
  • Agile in a nutshell
  • Meet your agile team
• Agile Project Inception
  • How to get everyone on the bus
  • Seeing the big picture
  • Making it real
• Planning Agile Projects
  • Gathering user stories
  • Estimation - the fine art of guessing excerpt
  • Agile planning - dealing with reality
• Executing Agile Projects
  • Iteration management - making it happen
  • Creating an agile communication plan
  • Creating a visible workspace excerpt
• Creating Agile Software
  • Unit testing - knowing it works
  • Refactoring - paying down your technical debt
  • Test-Driven Development
  • Continuous integration - making it production ready
• Appendixes
  • Agile Principles
  • Resources
  • Bibliography