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11 Top Agile Development Books That You Should Read Now

Agile!

The Good, the Hype and the Ugly

Bertrand Meyer · 2014

Are you attracted by the promises of agile methods but put off by the fanaticism of many agile texts? Would you like to know which agile techniques work, which ones do not matter much, and which ones will harm your projects? Then you need Agile!: the first exhaustive, objective review of agile principles, techniques and tools.

Agile methods are one of the most important developments in software over the past decades, but also a surprising mix of the best and the worst. Until now every project and developer had to sort out the good ideas from the bad by themselves. This book spares you the pain. It offers both a thorough descriptive presentation of agile techniques and a perceptive analysis of their benefits and limitations.

Agile! serves first as a primer on agile development: one chapter each introduces agile principles, roles, managerial practices, technical practices and artifacts. A separate chapter analyzes the major agile methods: Extreme Programming, Lean Software and Scrum.

The accompanying critical analysis explains what you should retain and discard from agile ideas. It is based on Meyer’s thorough understanding of software engineering, and his extensive personal experience of programming and project management. He highlights the limitations of agile methods as well as their truly brilliant contributions — even those to which their own authors do not do full justice.

Three important chapters precede the core discussion of agile ideas: an overview, serving as a concentrate of the entire book; a dissection of the intellectual devices used by agile authors; and a review of classical software engineering techniques, such as requirements analysis and lifecycle models, which agile methods criticize.

Head First Agile

A Brain-Friendly Guide to Agile Principles, Ideas, and Real-World Practices

By Andrew Stellman, Jennifer Greene · 2017

Head First Agile is a complete guide to learning real-world agile ideas, practices, principles.

In Head First Agile, you'll learn all about the ideas behind agile and the straightforward practices that drive it. You'll take deep dives into Scrum, XP, Lean, and Kanban, the most common real-world agile approaches today. You'll learn how to use agile to help your teams plan better, work better together, write better code, and improve as a team—because agile not only leads to great results, but agile teams say they also have a much better time at work. Head First Agile will help you get agile into your brain... and onto your team!

Based on the latest research in cognitive science and learning theory, Head First Agile uses a visually rich format to engage your mind, rather than a text-heavy approach that puts you to sleep. Why waste your time struggling with new concepts? This multi-sensory learning experience is designed for the way your brain really works.

Learning Agile

Understanding Scrum, XP, Lean, and Kanban

By Andrew Stellman, Jennifer Greene · 2014

Learning Agile is a comprehensive guide to the most popular agile methods, written in a light and engaging style that makes it easy for you to learn.

Agile has revolutionized the way teams approach software development, but with dozens of agile methodologies to choose from, the decision to "go agile" can be tricky. This practical book helps you sort it out, first by grounding you in agile’s underlying principles, then by describing four specific—and well-used—agile methods: Scrum, extreme programming (XP), Lean, and Kanban.

Each method focuses on a different area of development, but they all aim to change your team’s mindset—from individuals who simply follow a plan to a cohesive group that makes decisions together. Whether you’re considering agile for the first time, or trying it again, you’ll learn how to choose a method that best fits your team and your company.

Understand the purpose behind agile’s core values and principles
Learn Scrum’s emphasis on project management, self-organization, and collective commitment
Focus on software design and architecture with XP practices such as test-first and pair programming
Use Lean thinking to empower your team, eliminate waste, and deliver software fast
Learn how Kanban’s practices help you deliver great software by managing flow
Adopt agile practices and principles with an agile coach

The Agile Samurai

How Agile Masters Deliver Great Software

By Jonathan Rasmusson · 2010

Faced with a software project of epic proportions? Tired of over-committing and under-delivering? Enter the dojo of the agile samurai, where agile expert Jonathan Rasmusson shows you how to kick-start, execute, and deliver your agile projects. Combining cutting-edge tools with classic agile practices, The Agile Samurai gives you everything you need to deliver something of value every week and make rolling your software into production a non-event.

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.

Agile Software Requirements

Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise

By Dean Leffingwell · 2010

Effective requirements discovery and analysis is a critical best practice for serious application development. Until now, however, requirements and Agile methods have rarely coexisted peacefully. For many enterprises considering Agile approaches, the absence of effective and scalable Agile requirements processes has been a showstopper for Agile adoption. In Agile Software Requirements, Dean Leffingwell shows exactly how to create effective requirements in Agile environments.

Part I presents the “big picture” of Agile requirements in the enterprise, and describes an overall process model for Agile requirements at the project team, program, and portfolio levels
Part II describes a simple and lightweight, yet comprehensive model that Agile project teams can use to manage requirements
Part III shows how to develop Agile requirements for complex systems that require the cooperation of multiple teams

This book will help you leverage the benefits of Agile without sacrificing the value of effective requirements discovery and analysis. You’ll find proven solutions you can apply right now–whether you’re a software developer or tester, executive, project/program manager, architect, or team leader.

Agile Project Management For Dummies

Be flexible and faster with Agile project management

By Mark C. Layton · 2012

As mobile and web technologies continue to evolve rapidly, there is added pressure to develop and implement software projects in weeks instead of months. Agile Project Management For Dummies can make that happen. This is the first book to provide a simple, step-by-step guide to Agile Project Management approaches, tools, and techniques. With the fast pace of mobile and web technology development, software project development must keep pace; Agile Project Management enables developers to complete and implement projects more quickly and this book shows you how.

Offers a practical context for understanding and applying Agile techniques, moving from theory into actual practice
Explains when to use Agile and how to avoid common pitfalls
Written by experts who know how to apply the principles in real-world situations

Agile Project Management For Dummies enables you to understand and apply Agile principles for faster, more accurate development.

Agile Testing

A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams

By Lisa Crispin, Janet Gregory · 2008

Testing is a key component of agile development. The widespread adoption of agile methods has brought the need for effective testing into the limelight, and agile projects have transformed the role of testers. Much of a tester’s function, however, remains largely misunderstood. What is the true role of a tester? Do agile teams actually need members with QA backgrounds? What does it really mean to be an “agile tester?”

Two of the industry’s most experienced agile testing practitioners and consultants, Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory, have teamed up to bring you the definitive answers to these questions and many others. In Agile Testing, Crispin and Gregory define agile testing and illustrate the tester’s role with examples from real agile teams.

This book is a must for agile testers, agile teams, their managers, and their customers.

They teach you how to use the agile testing quadrants to identify what testing is needed, who should do it, and what tools might help. The book chronicles an agile software development iteration from the viewpoint of a tester and explains the seven key success factors
of agile testing.

Readers will come away from this book understanding

How to get testers engaged in agile development
Where testers and QA managers fit on an agile team
What to look for when hiring an agile tester
How to transition from a traditional cycle to agile development
How to complete testing activities in short iterations
How to use tests to successfully guide development
How to overcome barriers to test automation

Clean Agile

Back to Basics

By Robert C. Martin · 2019

Nearly twenty years after the Agile Manifesto was first presented, the legendary Robert C. Martin (“Uncle Bob”) reintroduces Agile values and principles for a new generation–programmers and nonprogrammers alike. Martin, author of Clean Code and other highly influential software development guides, was there at Agile’s founding. Now, in Clean Agile: Back to Basics, he strips away misunderstandings and distractions that over the years have made it harder to use Agile than was originally intended.

Martin describes what Agile is in no uncertain terms: a small discipline that helps small teams manage small projects . . . with huge implications because every big project is comprised of many small projects. Drawing on his fifty years’ experience with projects of every conceivable type, he shows how Agile can help you bring true professionalism to software development.

Get back to the basics–what Agile is, was, and should always be
Understand the origins, and proper practice, of SCRUM
Master essential business-facing Agile practices, from small releases and acceptance tests to whole-team communication
Explore Agile team members’ relationships with each other, and with their product
Rediscover indispensable Agile technical practices: TDD, refactoring, simple design, and pair programming
Understand the central roles values and craftsmanship play in your Agile team’s success

If you want Agile’s true benefits, there are no shortcuts: You need to do Agile right. Clean Agile: Back to Basics will show you how, whether you’re a developer, tester, manager, project manager, or customer.

Agile Governance and Audit

An overview for auditors and agile teams

By Christopher Wright · 2014

Bridging the gap between Agile teams and Auditors
Written for auditors and Agile managers, Agile Governance and Audit bridges the gap between traditional auditing approaches and the requirements of Agile methodologies. It provides an overview of Agile for auditors and other risk professionals who have not encountered the approach before. The book also tells Agile teams what auditors and risk professionals need, and the sort of questions they are likely to ask.

The Agile auditing challenge
Many auditors are now encountering Agile management methodologies for the first time. In some cases, this can cause problems for the audit process because the methodology is very different from traditional approaches. Aside from the difficulties faced by the auditor, an ineffective audit can have a negative effect on an Agile project by giving a false impression of its progress. It might even harm the final project outcome.

Essential reading for anyone involved in an Agile audit
Each chapter includes hints and tips for auditors, and a selection of case studies is included to illustrate the practical issues involved in auditing Agile projects. This makes it an ideal book for any auditor encountering the Agile methodology, and any Agile teams preparing for a management audit.

Agile Application Security

Enabling Security in a Continuous Delivery Pipeline

By Laura Bell, Michael Brunton-Spall, Rich Smith, Jim Bird · 2017

Agile continues to be the most adopted software development methodology among organizations worldwide, but it generally hasn't integrated well with traditional security management techniques. And most security professionals aren’t up to speed in their understanding and experience of agile development. To help bridge the divide between these two worlds, this practical guide introduces several security tools and techniques adapted specifically to integrate with agile development.

Written by security experts and agile veterans, this book begins by introducing security principles to agile practitioners, and agile principles to security practitioners. The authors also reveal problems they encountered in their own experiences with agile security, and how they worked to solve them.

You’ll learn how to:

Add security practices to each stage of your existing development lifecycle
Integrate security with planning, requirements, design, and at the code level
Include security testing as part of your team’s effort to deliver working software in each release
Implement regulatory compliance in an agile or DevOps environment
Build an effective security program through a culture of empathy, openness, transparency, and collaboration

Agile Testing Collection, The

A Comprehensive Collection of Agile Testing Best Practices: Two Definitive Guides from Leading Pioneers

By Janet Gregory, Lisa Crispin 2015

A Comprehensive Collection of Agile Testing Best Practices: Two Definitive Guides from Leading Pioneers Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispin haven't just pioneered agile testing, they have also written two of the field's most valuable guidebooks. Now, you can get both guides in one indispensable eBook collection: today's must-have resource for all agile testers, teams, managers, and customers. Combining comprehensive best practices and wisdom contained in these two titles, The Agile Testing Collection will help you adapt agile testing to your environment, systematically improve your skills and processes, and strengthen engagement across your entire development team.

The first title, Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams, defines the agile testing discipline and roles, and helps you choose, organize, and use the tools that will help you the most. Writing from the tester's viewpoint, Gregory and Crispin chronicle an entire agile software development iteration, and identify and explain seven key success factors of agile testing.

The second title, More Agile Testing: Learning Journeys for the Whole Team, addresses crucial emerging issues, shares evolved practices, and covers key issues that delivery teams want to learn more about. It offers powerful new insights into continuous improvement, scaling agile testing across teams and the enterprise, overcoming pitfalls of automation, testing in regulated environments, integrating DevOps practices, and testing mobile/embedded and business intelligence systems.

The Agile Testing Collection will help you do all this and much more. Customize agile testing processes to your needs, and successfully transition to them Organize agile teams, clarify roles, hire new testers, and quickly bring them up to speed Engage testers in agile development, and help agile team members improve their testing skills Use tests and collaborate with business experts to plan features and guide development.

Design automated tests for superior reliability and easier maintenance. Plan just enough, balancing small increments with larger feature sets and the entire system. Test to identify and mitigate risks, and prevent future defects. Perform exploratory testing using personas, tours, and test charters with session and thread-based techniques. Help testers, developers, and operations experts collaborate on shortening feedback cycles with continuous integration and delivery.

Both guides in this collection are thoroughly grounded in the authors' extensive experience, and supported by examples from actual projects. Now, with both books integrated into a single, easily searchable, and cross-linked eBook, you can learn from their experience even more easily.