Agile Coaching [Paperback]

Rachel Davies (Author), Liz Sedley (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1934356433 | ISBN-13: 978-1934356432 | Publication Date: September 4, 2009 | Edition: 1

To lead change, you need to expand your toolkit, and this book gives you the tools you need to make the transition from agile practitioner to agile coach.

Agile Coaching is all about working with people to create great agile teams. You'll learn how to build a team that produces great software and has fun doing it. In the process, you'll grow a team that's self-sufficient and skillful.

This book provides you with deeper knowledge of how agile practices work and how to inspire your team to improve. Discover how to coach your team through the agile lifecycle, from planning to writing software. Learn the secrets of running effective agile meetings and how to get your team following a consistent approach to creating software. You'll find chapters dedicated to introducing Test-Driven Development, designing Retrospectives, and making progress visible.

Find out what works and what to avoid when introducing agile practices to your team. Throughout the book the authors share their personal coaching stories from experience with real teams, giving you insights into what works and what to avoid. Each chapter also covers hurdles that you and your team may face and what to do to clear them.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Rachel Davies provides expert coaching to teams in Agile software development techniques, such as Test-Driven Development and planning with User Stories. She has been working with Agile teams using XP and Scrum since 2000. Rachel is internationally recognized in the agile community, a frequent presenter at industry conferences worldwide, and a director of Agile Alliance.

Liz Sedley is an Agile Coach and .Net Developer working in London, UK. She has fifteen years industry experience, mostly as a C++ / C# developer. Liz has spent the last four years enabling companies to be more Agile.

Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf; 1 edition (September 4, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934356433
• ISBN-13: 978-1934356432
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #143,161 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #63 in Books > Business & Investing > Industries & Professions > Consulting

More About the Author

I am co-author of a book on "Agile Coaching" with Liz Sedley. I had a lot of fun writing this book and I hope you enjoy reading it, as much as we enjoyed creating it!

I live in the UK, where I coach teams in agile software development techniques, such as planning with user stories and test-driven development. I've been using these techniques for 10 years now.

I love going to agile conferences and running interactive workshops. In my spare time I like organizing agile conferences large and small. I got a great buzz putting together the biggest event agile conference, Agile2008, with 1500 attendees and 400 speakers! But my favorite events are much smaller open space events where you can take a deeper dive into interesting topics like Agile Coaches Gathering.

I also served the agile community on the board of directors of not-for-profit Agile Alliance for 7 years, I'm just stepping down from this role in August 2010. I won't miss the long teleconference calls! But I did learn a lot from this experience, serving alongside many well-known agile authors including: Mike Cohn, Mary Poppendieck, Ken Schwaber, Brian Marick, Linda Rising, Mary-Lynn Manns, Esther Derby, Diana Larsen, Jutta Eckstein, Joe Rainsberger, Luke Hohmann, Ron Jeffries, and Henrik Kniberg.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book for Every Software Manager Developer, September 1, 2009

By 

Methods & Tools Editor "www.methodsandtools.com" (Vevey Switzerland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Agile Coaching (Paperback)

There was a time when software developers worked with consultants that will do things for their company or teach some technical knowledge. Agile approaches have brought forward another type of people: coaches. According to Rachel Davies and Liz Sedley, a coach doesn't tell you what to do, rather she shows you how she thinks you might do things and hope that it will help you to improve your situation. She leads by example. It is not easy to write a book on this type of topic. The authors recognize this situation and manage to achieve a good balance between general advice and practical usage reports.

The first part of the book is concentrated on the basics of coaching and communicating in software project. The software development curricula are often weak on "people" skills and you are not always lucky to find the right person as a supervisor when you get out of school. The second part goes through the different activities of a typical Agile project (daily meeting, user stories definition, planning, etc.) and discuss how coach can help a project team to achieve its goals. Each chapter has a final checklist and the book is also full of "personal stories" from the authors that enhance the theoretical advice, applying it on real situations.

Although the title of the book and some of its content might make you think that its value is limited to an agile context, I will recommend this book to every person that has some supervision function in software development organizations and to every developer who believe than acquiring additional "people" skill might improve its work environment. Just changing the way you talk with colleagues could lead to having more sunnier days at the office.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical, thorough reference for aspiring coaches, October 6, 2009

By 

Gerry J. Kirk (Sault Ste. Marie, ON, CAN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Agile Coaching (Paperback)

I echo Yves' statement in that I wish I had this book when I started out coaching teams. The book covers all the bases to get started as a coach.

For coaches like me who have a few years' experience, some sections might seem dry, but overall you will gain insights in many areas. The PrOpER (Problem, Options, Evaluate, Review) model for deciding what to do in a situation is an example of something I learned. Overall, I feel that Agile Coaching helps me go to a deeper level on the practices I am already using, as well as teaching me about technical practices less familiar.

The book is an easy read, organized so you can dive into the topics that matter most to you now and can be used as a quick reference later.

My road to learning how to be a more effective coach involved scouring posts and articles online, discussing in mailing lists and talking to other coaches. Agile Coaching is a one-stop shop, packed with practical advice, examples to work from and stories from the trenches.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for helping teams get started with agile software development, September 30, 2009

By 

Timothy J. Andersen (Ankeny, IA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Agile Coaching (Paperback)

This is a rather thin book that is a quick read. I like the cover art that was chosen for this book. Rachel and Liz did a great job of sprinkling little stories throughout the book to provide relevant examples that provided good context for the current topic.
I really enjoyed the first part of the book that focused on working with people, leading change, and building teams. The middle part of the book was a bit basic, but I won't judge harshly because the organization I work at has a fairly mature (6 years, 4 teams) adoption of Extreme Programming, so this part of the book was good review. It would be more valuable for someone who is trying to introduce teams to agile software development for the first time. The last part of the book was very good, it covers topics such as listening to feedback, helping teams reflect, and growing yourself.
I wish this book would have dealt more with 1-on-1 coaching and provided some insights/stories for "player coaches." I'd like to see a more advanced edition of this book for organizations who have a mature agile adoption and are looking to grow their own coaches.