Top 10 Enterprise Agile Books

This Top 10 list has been inspired by Joel at the Kaizone, a  content portal for lean books, blog posts and some fantastic resources. To take a look at his full list of the top 100 lean & OpEx blogs, click here.

For a selection of case studies, White Papers, reports, presentations & more, why not take a look at our original BTOES Insights content, or our excellent premium contributor content? Or for some wider reading, take a look at the Top 10 Operational Excellence Books.

The Agile Enterprise: Building and Running Agile Organizations

By Mario E. Moreira

"Discover how to implement and operate in an Agile manner at every level of your enterprise and at every point from idea to delivery. Learn how Agile-mature organizations adapt nimbly to microchanges in market conditions. Learn cutting-edge practices and concepts as you extend your implementation of Agile through the entire enterprise to meet customer needs.

Veteran Agile coach Mario Moreira argues that two critical conditions must be conscientiously cultivated at a company before it can expect to reap in full measure the business benefits of mature Agile. First, individuals at every level must be committed to the mindset and the implementation of practices rigorously focused on delivering value to the customer. Second, all employees must be empowered to take ownership. This holistic transformation wrenches the status quo and provokes a strong focus where customers and employees matter."

Project Management the Agile Way: Making it Work in the Enterprise

By  John Goodpasture

"Project Management the Agile Way is an agile project management book written for experienced project managers, architects and systems analysts who are comfortable in traditional methods of project management but now need to learn about agile methods for software projects and understand how to make agile work effectively in the enterprise. The methodologies included under the agile umbrella go by many names, such as Scrum, XP, Crystal and EVO, to name a few. Project managers will gain practical day-to-day tips and advice on how to apply these practices to mainstream projects and how to integrate these methods with other methodologies used in the enterprise."

Doing Agile Right: Transformation Without Chaos

By Darrell Rigby, Sarah Elk & Steve Berez

"For decades business leaders have been painfully aware of a huge chasm: They aspire to create nimble, flexible enterprises. But their day-to-day reality is silos, sluggish processes, and stalled innovation. Today, agile is hailed as the essential bridge across this chasm, with the potential to transform a company and catapult it to the head of the pack.

Not so fast. In this clear-eyed, indispensable book, Bain & Company thought leader Darrell Rigby and his colleagues Sarah Elk and Steve Berez provide a much-needed reality check. They dispel the myths and misconceptions that have accompanied agile's rise to prominence--the idea that it can reshape an organization all at once, for instance, or that it should be used in every function and for all types of work. They illustrate that agile teams can indeed be powerful, making people's jobs more rewarding and turbocharging innovation, but such results are possible only if the method is fully understood and implemented the right way."

Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time

By Jeff Sutherland & J.J. Sutherland

"For those who believe that there must be a more agile and efficient way for people to get things done, here is a brilliantly discursive, thought-provoking book about the leadership and management process that is changing the way we live.
 
In the future, historians may look back on human progress and draw a sharp line designating “before Scrum” and “after Scrum.” Scrum is that ground-breaking.  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."

Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great

By Esther Derby & Diana Larsen

"This amazing book provides readers with proven tools and techniques to solve any challenge that comes during Agile software development.

These challenges are brought forward in retrospective sessions. The book describes the necessity of frequent retrospectives in increments and iterations rather than at the end of the project.

The authors share their professional experience of helping software companies to reach their potential. You'll also learn how to use the experience of your team continually throughout the life of the project.

A well-run project retrospective helps software development teams examine what went right ort wrong on a project. This book will inspire and motivate all the team."

Learning Agile: Understanding Scrum, XP, Lean, and Kanban

By Maciej Kranz

"Learning Agile is a comprehensive guide to the most popular agile methods, written in a light and engaging style that makes it easy for you to learn. Agile has revolutionized the way teams approach software development, but with dozens of agile methodologies to choose from, the decision to "go agile" can be tricky. This practical book helps you sort it out, first by grounding you in agile's underlying principles, then by describing four specific--and well-used--agile methods: Scrum, extreme programming (XP), Lean, and Kanban. Each method focuses on a different area of development, but they all aim to change your team's mindset--from individuals who simply follow a plan to a cohesive group that makes decisions together. Whether you're considering agile for the first time, or trying it again, you'll learn how to choose a method that best fits your team and your company."

The Software Project Manager’s Bridge to Agility

By Anand Tamboli

"Discover how every solution in some way related to the IoT needs a platform and how to create that platform. This book is about being agile and reducing time to market without breaking the bank. It is about designing something that you can scale incrementally without having to do a lot of rework and potentially disrupting your current state of the work. So the key questions are: what does it take, how long does it take, and how much does it take to build your own IoT platform?"

Agile Estimating & Planning Your Sprint with Scrum

By Mike Cohn

"Agile Estimating and Planning provides a view of planning that's balanced between theory and practice, and it is supported by enough concrete experiences to lend it credibility. I particularly like the quote 'planning is a quest for value.' It points to a new, more positive attitude toward planning that goes beyond the 'necessary evil' view that I sometimes hold."