But how do you build the best team organization for your specific goals, culture, and needs? Team Topologies is a practical, step-by-step, adaptive model for organizational design and team interaction based on four fundamental team types and three team interaction patterns. It is a model that treats teams as the fundamental means of delivery, where team structures and communication pathways are able to evolve with technological and organizational maturity.In Team Topologies, IT consultants Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais share secrets of successful team patterns and interactions to help readers choose and evolve the right team patterns for their organization, making sure to keep the software healthy and optimize value streams.Team Topologies is a major step forward in organizational design for software, presenting a well-defined way for teams to interact and interrelate that helps make the resulting software architecture clearer and more sustainable, turning inter-team problems into valuable signals for the self-steering organization.

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

    He describes a broad range of agile product management practices, including making agile product discovery work, taking advantage of emergent requirements, creating the minimal marketable product, leveraging early customer feedback, and working closely with the development team. Benefitting from Pichler's extensive experience, you'll learn how Scrum product ownership differs from traditional product management and how to avoid and overcome the common challenges that Scrum product owners face. Coverage includesUnderstanding the product owner's role: what product owners do, how they do it, and the surprising implicationsEnvisioning the product: creating a compelling product vision to galvanize and guide the team and stakeholdersGrooming the product backlog: managing the product backlog effectively even for the most complex productsPlanning the release: bringing clarity to scheduling, budgeting, and functionality decisionsCollaborating in sprint meetings: understanding the product owner's role in sprint meetings, including the dos and don'tsTransitioning into product ownership: succeeding as a product owner and establishing the role in the enterprise This book is an indispensable resource for anyone who works as a product owner, or expects to do so, as well as executives and coaches interested in establishing agile product management.

    It already drives most of the world’s top technology companies. And now it’s starting to spread to every domain where leaders wrestle with complex projects. If you’ve ever been startled by how fast the world is changing, Scrum is one of the reasons why. Productivity gains of as much as 1200% have been recorded, and there’s no more lucid – or compelling – explainer of Scrum and its bright promise than Jeff Sutherland, the man who put together the first Scrum team more than twenty years ago. The thorny problem Jeff began tackling back then boils down to this: people are spectacularly bad at doing things with agility and efficiency. Best laid plans go up in smoke. Teams often work at cross purposes to each other. And when the pressure rises, unhappiness soars. Drawing on his experience as a West Point-educated fighter pilot, biometrics expert, early innovator of ATM technology, and V.P. of engineering or CTO at eleven different technology companies, Jeff began challenging those dysfunctional realities, looking for solutions that would have global impact. In this book you’ll journey to Scrum’s front lines where Jeff’s system of deep accountability, team interaction, and constant iterative improvement is, among other feats, bringing the FBI into the 21st century, perfecting the design of an affordable 140 mile per hour/100 mile per gallon car, helping NPR report fast-moving action in the Middle East, changing the way pharmacists interact with patients, reducing poverty in the Third World, and even helping people plan their weddings and accomplish weekend chores. Woven with insights from martial arts, judicial decision making, advanced aerial combat, robotics, and many other disciplines, Scrum is consistently riveting. But the most important reason to read this book is that it may just help you achieve what others consider unachievable – whether it be inventing a trailblazing technology, devising a new system of education, pioneering a way to feed the hungry, or, closer to home, a building a foundation for your family to thrive and prosper.

    Did you design your system to survivef a sudden rush of visitors from Digg or Slashdot? Or an influx of real world customers from 100 different countries? Are you ready for a world filled with flakey networks, tangled databases, and impatient users?If you're a developer and don't want to be on call for 3AM for the rest of your life, this book will help.In Release It!, Michael T. Nygard shows you how to design and architect your application for the harsh realities it will face. You'll learn how to design your application for maximum uptime, performance, and return on investment.Mike explains that many problems with systems today start with the design.

    More and more frequently, ScrumMasters and project managers are being asked to coach agile teams. But it's a challenging role. It requires new skills--as well as a subtle understanding of when to step in and when to step back. Migrating from "command and control" to agile coaching requires a whole new mind-set. In Coaching Agile Teams, Lyssa Adkins gives agile coaches the insights they need to adopt this new mind-set and to guide teams to extraordinary performance in a re-energized work environment. You'll gain a deep view into the role of the agile coach, discover what works and what doesn't, and learn how to adapt powerful skills from many allied disciplines, including the fields of professional coaching and mentoring. Coverage includes Understanding what it takes to be a great agile coach Mastering all of the agile coach's roles: teacher, mentor, problem solver, conflict navigator, and performance coach Creating an environment where self-organized, high-performance teams can emerge Coaching teams past cooperation and into full collaboration Evolving your leadership style as your team grows and changes Staying actively engaged without dominating your team and stunting its growth Recognizing failure, recovery, and success modes in your coaching Getting the most out of your own personal agile coaching journey Whether you're an agile coach, leader, trainer, mentor, facilitator, ScrumMaster, project manager, product owner, or team member, this book will help you become skilled at helping others become truly great. What could possibly be more rewarding?

    "This book is a guide to how we do product development at Basecamp. It’s also a toolbox full of techniques that you can apply in your own way to your own process.Whether you’re a founder, CTO, product manager, designer, or developer, you’re probably here because of some common challenges that all software companies have to face."

    With a blend of software engineering facts and thought-provoking opinions, Fred Brooks offers insight for anyone managing complex projects. These essays draw from his experience as project manager for the IBM System/360 computer family and then for OS/360, its massive software system. Now, 45 years after the initial publication of his book, Brooks has revisited his original ideas and added new thoughts and advice, both for readers already familiar with his work and for readers discovering it for the first time.The added chapters contain (1) a crisp condensation of all the propositions asserted in the original book, including Brooks' central argument in The Mythical Man-Month: that large programming projects suffer management problems different from small ones due to the division of labor; that the conceptual integrity of the product is therefore critical; and that it is difficult but possible to achieve this unity; (2) Brooks' view of these propositions a generation later; (3) a reprint of his classic 1986 paper "No Silver Bullet"; and (4) today's thoughts on the 1986 assertion, "There will be no silver bullet within ten years."

    Weinberg adds new insights and highlights the similarities and differences between now and then. Using a conversational style that invites the reader to join him, Weinberg reunites with some of his most insightful writings on the human side of software engineering.Topics include egoless programming, intelligence, psychological measurement, personality factors, motivation, training, social problems on large projects, problem-solving ability, programming language design, team formation, the programming environment, and much more.Dorset House Publishing is proud to make this important text available to new generations of programmers -- and to encourage readers of the first edition to return to its valuable lessons.

    Cooper details many of these meta functions to explain his central thesis: programmers need to seriously re-evaluate the many user-hostile concepts deeply embedded within the software development process. Rather than provide users with a straightforward set of options, programmers often pile on the bells and whistles and ignore or de-prioritise lingering bugs. For the average user, increased functionality is a great burden, adding to the recurrent chorus that plays: "computers are hard, mysterious, unwieldy things." (An average user, Cooper asserts, who doesn't think that way or who has memorised all the esoteric commands and now lords it over others, has simply been desensitised by too many years of badly designed software.) Cooper's writing style is often overblown, with a pantheon of cutesy terminology (i.e. "dancing bearware") and insider back-patting. (When presenting software to Bill Gates, he reports that Gates replied: "How did you do that?" to which he writes: "I love stumping Bill!") More seriously, he is also unable to see beyond software development's importance--a sin he accuses programmers of throughout the book. Even with that in mind, the central questions Cooper asks are too important to ignore: Are we making users happier? Are we improving the process by which they get work done? Are we making their work hours more effective? Cooper looks to programmers, business managers and what he calls "interaction designers" to question current assumptions and mindsets. Plainly, he asserts that the goal of computer usage should be "not to make anyone feel stupid." Our distance from that goal reinforces the need to rethink entrenched priorities in software planning. -- Jennifer Buckendorff, Amazon.com

    The answers aren't easy -- just incredibly successful.

    Management is a key part of any organization, yet the discipline is often self-taught and unstructured. Getting to the good solutions of complex management challenges can make the difference between fulfillment and frustration for teams, and, ultimately, the success or failure of companies. Will Larson's An Elegant Puzzle orients around the particular challenges of engineering management--from sizing teams to technical debt to succession planning--and provides a path to the good solutions. Drawing from his experience at Digg, Uber, and Stripe, Will Larson has developed a thoughtful approach to engineering management that leaders of all levels at companies of all sizes can apply. An Elegant Puzzle balances structured principles and human-centric thinking to help any leader create more effective and rewarding organizations for engineers to thrive in.

    But Scrum’s simplicity itself—its lack of prescription—can be disarming, and new practitioners often find themselves reverting to old project management habits and tools and yielding lesser results. In this illuminating series of case studies, Scrum co-creator and evangelist Ken Schwaber identifies the real-world lessons—the successes and failures—culled from his years of experience coaching companies in agile project management. Through them, you’ll understand how to use Scrum to solve complex problems and drive better results—delivering more valuable software faster.Gain the foundation in Scrum theory—and practice—you need to:Rein in even the most complex, unwieldy projectsEffectively manage unknown or changing product requirementsSimplify the chain of command with self-managing development teamsReceive clearer specifications—and feedback—from customersGreatly reduce project planning time and required toolsBuild—and release—products in 30-day cycles so clients get deliverables earlierAvoid missteps by regularly inspecting, reporting on, and fine-tuning projectsSupport multiple teams working on a large-scale project from many geographic locationsMaximize return on investment!

    Emphasizes possible, realistic and "best practice" approaches for managers, technical leads and self-managed teams. The author emphasizes efficient development concepts with an examination of rapid development strategies and a study of classic mistakes, within the context of software-development fundamentals and risk management. Dissects the core issues of rapid development, lifecycle planning, estimation and scheduling. Contains very good and practical discussions of customer-oriented development, motivation and teamwork. Explains such fundamental requirements as team structure, feature-set control (the dreaded feature creep in every project), availability and use of productivity tools and project recovery options. Relevant case studies are analyzed and discussed within the context of specific software development problems. Over 200 pages in this publication are devoted to a summary of best practices, everything from the daily build and smoke test, through prototyping, model selection, measurement, reuse, and the top-10 risks list. This publication is definitely recommended and will become a classic in the field, just as the author's prior publication, "Code Complete" already is.

    Plenty of books describe what agile development is or why it helps software projects succeed, but very few combine information for developers, managers, testers, and customers into a single package that they can apply directly. This book provides no-nonsense advice on agile planning, development, delivery, and management taken from the authors' many years of experience with Extreme Programming (XP). You get a gestalt view of the agile development process, including comprehensive guidance for non-technical readers and hands-on technical practices for developers and testers. The Art of Agile Development gives you clear answers to questions such as:How can we adopt agile development? Do we really need to pair program? What metrics should we report? What if I can't get my customer to participate? How much documentation should we write? When do we design and architect? As a non-developer, how should I work with my agile team? Where is my product roadmap? How does QA fit in? The book teaches you how to adopt XP practices, describes each practice in detail, then discusses principles that will allow you to modify XP and create your own agile method. In particular, this book tackles the difficult aspects of agile development: the need for cooperation and trust among team members. Whether you're currently part of an agile team, working with an agile team, or interested in agile development, this book provides the practical tips you need to start practicing agile development. As your experience grows, the book will grow with you, providing exercises and information that will teach you first to understand the rules of agile development, break them, and ultimately abandon rules altogether as you master the art of agile development. "Jim Shore and Shane Warden expertly explain the practices and benefits of Extreme Programming. They offer advice from their real-world experiences in leading teams. They answer questions about the practices and show contraindications - ways that a practice may be mis-applied. They offer alternatives you can try if there are impediments to applying a practice, such as the lack of an on-site customer. --Ken Pugh, Author of Jolt Award Winner, Prefactoring "I will leave a copy of this book with every team I visit." --Brian Marick, Exampler Consulting