Individuals and Interactions: An Agile Guide

“In my opinion, this is the handbook for Agile teams. I have been wishing for this book since we implemented Agile several years ago. In many Agile process books, the team aspect of Agile has been glossed over in favor of the technical aspects; this book is a welcome change.”

—Sarah Edrie, Director of Quality Engineering, Harvard Business School

“Cloud Computing, Distributed Architecture, Test Driven Development…these are simple to master compared to building an agile, efficient, and top-performing team. The path from skilled developer/tester to successful manager, team leader, and beyond is now more easily attainable with the insights, knowledge, and guidance provided by Ken Howard and Barry Rogers in Individuals and Interactions: An Agile Guide.”

—R.L. Bogetti, www.RLBogetti.com, Lead System Designer, Baxter Healthcare

“This book provides fantastic insight on how individuals act and relate as a team. Ken and Barry give great examples and exercises to help the reader understand behaviors of each individual and use this knowledge to perform better as a team.”

—Lisa Shoop, Director Product Development, Sabre-Holdings

“Individuals and Interactions is a masterfully crafted must-read for anyone who is serious about understanding and applying the human-centered values of Agile development. It is like Patrick Lencioni meets the Poppendiecks to write ‘Agile through the Looking-Glass.’ Here the ‘Looking-Glass’ is the powerful DISC framework, and we see it used to enable different kind of TDD (Team-Driven Development) through the use of stories, examples, models, and guidance.”

—Brad Appleton, Agile coach/consultant in a Fortune 100 telecom company; coauthor of Software Configuration Management Patterns

“This book is essential reading for any engineering team that’s serious about Agile development. Its chapters on team dynamics and development lay the foundation for learning all of the factors that enable a team to transform itself into an Agile success story.”

—Bernard Farrell, Consultant Software Engineer at EMC Corporation

Great emphasis is typically placed on the “mechanics” of agile development–its processes and tools. It’s easy to forget that the Agile Manifesto values individuals and interactions ahead of processes and tools. You can gain powerful benefits by refocusing on the people side of agile development.

This book will show you how. It’s your practical user’s guide to solving the problems agile teams encounter, packed with stories, best practices, exercises, and tips you can actually use. Step by step, you’ll learn how to get teams to truly work as teams, not as disconnected individuals. Along the way, you’ll find profoundly realistic advice on communication, motivation, collaboration, change, group dynamics, and much more.

Whether you are an agile project manager, ScrumMaster, product owner, developer, trainer, or consultant, this book will help you make your agile environment more productive, more effective, and more personally fulfilling.