The Agile Codex: Re-inventing Agile Through the Science of Invention and Assembly

Apply the industrial engineering science of invention and assembly to how software is described, planned, and built, thus allowing you to be free to flex your practices according to your needs, putting principle over habit and rules.

Reading about Agile practices is like reading diet advice. Everything sounds unique and good; everything starts with good intentions. Then reality sets in. Organizations adapt their practices, but lose sight of grounding principles. A bias toward ceremonies, metrics, and recipes comes at the expense of efficiently getting the real work done. Managers and developers are incentivized to game the system. Organizational metrics become detached from the reality of what is being delivered and how.

The Agile Codex shows you how to describe a software project as an acyclic dependency tree of sized work items, scoped to be operated on by one software engineer each and completed within a week. It covers how to optimally sequence and assign these work items to bring calendar time for delivery as close to effort time as possible. You’ll see the value of doing this as it applies to optimally planning and adjusting software projects in the face of learning and change. Finally, the book covers the collaborative agile principles required to bring this skill set and practice to a software team.

Throughout the book you’ll be reminded that software engineering is not a rote task – it is primarily a skilled, creative act. As such, you’ll see that we need to account for the space needed to research, plan, create, and adjust. The Agile practices serving the codex deal with this intersection between the engineering problem of software delivery flow, and the human reality of how work is described, owned, executed, and transitioned from one state to another.

Everything an agile team does must serve the codex. The creation and the care and feeding of this structured tree of work sets the frame in which all other team actions take place and against which all successes or failures can be evaluated.

What You Will Learn 

• Understand the benefits of collaboration on team cohesion, resilience to change, and efficient mitigation of risk
• Teach teams to follow the practices, become strong collaborators, modify the practices while staying true to the principles, and more predictably deliver software while minimizing risk
• Optimally sequence and assign work items to bring calendar time for delivery as close to effort time as possible

Who This Book is For

People who manage the planning and delivery of software.