5 Books to Improve your Agile Skills

Finally, the summer has started!! To prevent you from having a non-productive summer I’ll give you some mandatory reading for by the pool or at the beach 😉

Agile Software Developement by Robert C. Martin

Written by one of the most influential software developers ever. This book is a must read for everyone who wants to master the art of agile software development. This book explains in great detail how to use the principles and patterns behind the manifesto for agile software development in your daily work. Using a practical, problem-solving approach, it takes you on a journey inside the brain of a skilled agile developer. It teaches how to develop an object-oriented application from the early stages of analysis, through the low-level design and into the implementation. For me this also is the first book I ever read on Agile.

Management 3.0 by Jürgen Appelo 
When organizations adopt agile software development, not only developers and project managers need to learn new practices. Development managers and team leaders must also learn a different approach to leading and managing organizations. This book is one of the few that has a half-theoretical, half-practical approach. Understanding why is important if managers want to learn what their new role is in software development organizations in the 21st century.

Six Simple Rules by Yves Morieux and Peter Tollman

Written by Yves Morieux and Peter Tollman, both key figures within the Boston Consultancy Group(BCG). They argue that, conventional management theories and practices only make managing complex problems more complicated. The way to manage complexity lies neither with scientific management or with the soft solutions. Based on social sciences (notably economics, game theory, and organizational sociology) and the BCG’s work with more than five hundred companies in more than forty countries, they recommend six simple rules to manage complexity without getting complicated.

Thinking, Fast and Slow  by Daniel Kahneman

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Nobel Price winner Daniel Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities and also the faults and biases of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. The impact of loss aversion and overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the challenges of properly framing risks at work and at home, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning the next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions.

Continuous Delivery by Jez Humble and David Farley

Authors Jez Humble and David Farley explain the principles and practices behind Continuous Delivery(CD). A concept  to enable the rapid delivery of high quality software. Whether you’re a developer, systems administrator, tester, or manager, this book will help your organization move from idea to release faster than ever and is essential if you continuously want to deliver value to your business.

Everyone is a reader… some just haven’t found their favorite book yet.