Reviews for Scaling Software Agility: Best Practices for Large Enterprises (Agile Software Development)

1. Agility for Real Projects

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, October 12th, 2008

   I have a vast collection of books on Agile methods. All of them, apart from this book, leave a gap concerning how to deal with projects where deep analysis is required and yet the project still be Agile. These are the sorts of problems that Enterprise's deal with and are a million miles away from typical web-based applications, which I tend to see as broad but shallow, supporting what is unkindly called "whim-driven" requirements. This book addresses the full range of projects and shows how to preserve the benefits of Agile in large-scale, in-depth projects. The style is readable with a refreshing lack of agile dogma, replaced by attention to principles rather than rules. By doing this it provides scalable solutions. Use Cases make an appearance in the book, with the qualification that they are needed when more analysis is requried,. Exactly! User Stories, to me at least, seem to reflect the "divide and conquer" approach as well as "need to know" and "not seeing the wood for the trees". Refactoring is a great and well known concept. It is not so great if it causes the architecture to be refactored and issues such as this are well discussed in the book. The book applies a needed pinch of salt to Agile as a Religion. If you are looking for an Agile Cookbook, this is not it. If you want a book to help you understand how to get the best of Agile in more complex environments, buy it.