Subtle for WordPress

Either you’ve had the privilege of vacationing from software development for the last 5 years (if so, tell me your secret), or you’ve had some encounter with Agile Software Development. If you’re like me, your first encounter may have consisted of an eXtreme Programming fan, devout follower of the other “XP”, espousing the benefits of pair programming while detailing a software development war story in a bleak, desolate, depression-filled land without XP. And, before the XP fan could even finish his story, you had already surmised a plan to convince your boss of this new phenomenon to enable, I mean “empower,” you to you play solitaire, I mean “engage in active collaboration,” while sitting next to someone else who does all the work, I mean “records the work product as code.”

So, if you are like me, you could have missed noticing any benefit to Agile Software Development in the midst of solitaire dreams and visions of a more “relaxed” work environment. Likewise, you may be in the unfortunate position of noticing that other people are actually taking Agile Software Development seriously, there appears to be more to it than XP, and there seems to be some merit to agile practices after all. Worst of all, you’re out of touch in an industry that’s changing.

Don’t fear. Just read. I don’t claim to have read all the books on agile this and eXtreme that or so on and so forth, but I recently encountered a good book that looks at why you might want to consider the agile phenomenon and what the phenomenon entails. The book? “Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager’s Guide” by Craig Larman and published by Addison-Wesley in 2003.

What most impresses me about the book is its clear explanation of Iterative and Incremental Development (IID) (ch. 2), how IID shaped agile methods and what it means to be agile (ch.3-5), and evidence to support IID-based methods (ch. 6.) That’s right evidence from research and history and not philosophy from people who claim to be smarter than you. I appreciate Larman dedicating the first half of the book to giving you a clear, motivated understanding of Agile and Iterative Development and then using the second half to detail out specific methods.