author : Jim Highsmith

Written by one of the leaders of the Agile movement, and including interviews with Agile gurus Kent Beck, Robert Charette, Alistair Cockburn, Martin Fowler, Ken Schwaber, and Ward Cunningham, Agile Software Development Ecosystems crystallizes the current understanding of this flexible and highly successful approach to software development. It presents the key practices of all Agile development approaches, offers overviews of specific techniques, and shows how you can choose the approach that best suits your organization.

This book describes—in depth—the most important principles of Agile development: delivering value to the customer, focusing on individual developers and their skills, collaboraTiON, an emphasis on producing working software, the critical contribution of technical excellence, and a willingness to change course when demands shift. All major Agile methods are presented:

• Scrum
• Dynamic Systems Development Method
• Crystal Methods
• Feature-Driven Development
• Lean Development
• Extreme Programming
• Adaptive Software Development

Throughout the book, case stories are used to illustrate how Agile practices empower success around the world in today’s chaotic software development industry. Agile Software Development Ecosystems also examines how to determine your organization’s Agile readiness, how to design a custom Agile methodology, and how to transform your company into a truly Agile organization.

To prepare for a turbulent future, you must understand the past. In Wild West to Agile, legendary agilist, author, and storyteller Jim Highsmith shares a deeply personal history of the “software adventurers” who envisioned the future and the evolution and revolution they inspired.

Highsmith's six-decade business and tech career encompassed “The Wild West” (1966-1979), “Structured Methods and Monumental Methodologies” (1980s), “The Roots of Agile” (1990s), and “The Agile Era” (2001-present). For each era, he braids together personal stories and insightful context, illuminating both change and continuity in methods, methodologies, and mindsets.

Like the best creative nonfiction, this is a true story well told. You'll find it utterly compelling—whether you were there and want to reminisce, or you're part of a newer generation who wants to know how on Earth we got here.

• Travel through four eras of software development history
• Understand the roots of and the evolution of the Agile movement
• Recognize what rogue teams and courageous leaders have to teach us
• Learn about digital transformation in an accelerating world