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Being Agile: Your Roadmap to Successful Adoption of Agile
Being Agile is your roadmap to successfully transforming your organization to an Agile culture. Veteran agile coach Mario Moreira teaches new adopters how to implement a robust Agile framework to derive from it the maximum business benefit in terms of customer value, revenue, and employee engagement. Agile is a ubiquitous watchword in the corporate world, but only a minority of companies understand and practice what they pay lip service to. Too many content themselves with half-baked approximations such as Fragile (fragile Agile), ScrumBut (Scrum but not the practices), and Scrum Fall (mini-waterfalls in the sprints). Moreira shows maturing early adopters how to bridge the chasm between going through the motions of doing Agile and genuinely being Agile. After a high-level synopsis of Agile’s values and principles, methodologies (including Scrum, Kanban, DSDM, Leam, VFQ, and XP), and roles, Moreira plunges into the nitty-gritty of how to apply the ready, implement, coach, and hone (RICH) deployment model to all phases of a project in such a way as to embody and inculcate agile values and principles at the team level and promote agile transformation across your organization's culture.
275 pages, Paperback
First published August 21, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 10, 2019
Beginning to read Moreira’s book in February 2019 I expected to find antiqued agile recipes since the book was release already in 2013. To my surprise the book felt fresh and none of the concepts presented felt deprecated in time. From my experience as Agile Coach, the book contained nothing where I would have said “Wrong!” but many points where I went “Wow, interesting way too look at this…”.
Such wow-moments for me were when Moreira passionately writes about the differences of doing and being agile or when he uses an interesting real life metaphor relating agile journey. His simple visual tool for talking with leadership about agility and the way he looks at organization’s roles (inside and outside agile core) is also worth mentioning. Moreira’s own Agile Deployment Model “Readiness, Implement, Coach, Hone” is elegant in its simplicity.
Moreira also introduced me to a few things I didn’t know previously, such as VFQ-Model and Agility Path, so those were interesting. The chapters on metrics, surveys and customer profiles were especially good and approach with a new angle. Mapping organizational readiness with a survey based of agile principles was also new to me in this form, quite nice indeed! The quotes before the chapters were spot on, almost all of them new to me, which is surprising because I am the biggest quote geek ever. Case studies in the last chapter were nice bonus.
From the raw page count the “readiness assessment” part is mostly interacted with and actual implementation and coaching parts are more succiny. I admit at parts he could have gone deeper. For me such part was coaching. He does mention coaching many times and even lists different coaching activities (eg. in-session coaching, grooming in-house talent, coaching circles) but yet doesn’t really explain how to do that in practical terms. In other areas that didn’t annoy (or disappoint) me but here it felt somewhat shallow. However, this is not a coaching book, per se, so we can find coaching advice elsewhere. We also must remember Moreira does make a solid case for an Agile Coach role already in 2013, when the role was still non-existent (at least in Europe)! Kudos for that level of forward thinking.
Moreira writes well, and clearly articulates from a position of experience. The book is divided into 24 chapters, and each is readable as a single. His style is succint and to the point, which I like. Especially informative were the many diagrams, purposeful and clear. (Btw, the only error I could spot in the whole book was in one diagram, namely Fig. 12-1, where instead “Scrum Team” should have read “Dev Team”…but that’s small potatoes)
Moreira clearly has chosen his writing style to be slightly prescriptive, as he uses many bullet points to list preferred (or expected) manner of things. I suspect this might not be to everybody’s liking. I believe though his angles cater most practical and philosophical needs. I like that when Moreira talks “outside of agile”, he tells readers which discipline he’s borrowing from. When he eg. is talking about waste, value-added work and non-value added work, he refers the source being lean thinking.
I read the book in three days, whilst making study notes of each chapter. This book is unlike any other agile book. It’s prescriptive, sure, but it also allows one to fill in the gaps with own thinking. I think this book just made me a better agilist and this I can’t say from every agile book. I feel somehow “more rounded” and “more confident” than before, hard to describe it actually, and this happens seldom so I’m intrigued by my reaction to the book. I guess the book confirmed some of my assumptions and painted an overarching and understandable landscape of agile.
Needles to say I loved the book, and will be re-visiting it often. These kind of books make one feel alive again and cement the relationship with one's craft. Thank you Mr Moreira. Five stars.
Such wow-moments for me were when Moreira passionately writes about the differences of doing and being agile or when he uses an interesting real life metaphor relating agile journey. His simple visual tool for talking with leadership about agility and the way he looks at organization’s roles (inside and outside agile core) is also worth mentioning. Moreira’s own Agile Deployment Model “Readiness, Implement, Coach, Hone” is elegant in its simplicity.
Moreira also introduced me to a few things I didn’t know previously, such as VFQ-Model and Agility Path, so those were interesting. The chapters on metrics, surveys and customer profiles were especially good and approach with a new angle. Mapping organizational readiness with a survey based of agile principles was also new to me in this form, quite nice indeed! The quotes before the chapters were spot on, almost all of them new to me, which is surprising because I am the biggest quote geek ever. Case studies in the last chapter were nice bonus.
From the raw page count the “readiness assessment” part is mostly interacted with and actual implementation and coaching parts are more succiny. I admit at parts he could have gone deeper. For me such part was coaching. He does mention coaching many times and even lists different coaching activities (eg. in-session coaching, grooming in-house talent, coaching circles) but yet doesn’t really explain how to do that in practical terms. In other areas that didn’t annoy (or disappoint) me but here it felt somewhat shallow. However, this is not a coaching book, per se, so we can find coaching advice elsewhere. We also must remember Moreira does make a solid case for an Agile Coach role already in 2013, when the role was still non-existent (at least in Europe)! Kudos for that level of forward thinking.
Moreira writes well, and clearly articulates from a position of experience. The book is divided into 24 chapters, and each is readable as a single. His style is succint and to the point, which I like. Especially informative were the many diagrams, purposeful and clear. (Btw, the only error I could spot in the whole book was in one diagram, namely Fig. 12-1, where instead “Scrum Team” should have read “Dev Team”…but that’s small potatoes)
Moreira clearly has chosen his writing style to be slightly prescriptive, as he uses many bullet points to list preferred (or expected) manner of things. I suspect this might not be to everybody’s liking. I believe though his angles cater most practical and philosophical needs. I like that when Moreira talks “outside of agile”, he tells readers which discipline he’s borrowing from. When he eg. is talking about waste, value-added work and non-value added work, he refers the source being lean thinking.
I read the book in three days, whilst making study notes of each chapter. This book is unlike any other agile book. It’s prescriptive, sure, but it also allows one to fill in the gaps with own thinking. I think this book just made me a better agilist and this I can’t say from every agile book. I feel somehow “more rounded” and “more confident” than before, hard to describe it actually, and this happens seldom so I’m intrigued by my reaction to the book. I guess the book confirmed some of my assumptions and painted an overarching and understandable landscape of agile.
Needles to say I loved the book, and will be re-visiting it often. These kind of books make one feel alive again and cement the relationship with one's craft. Thank you Mr Moreira. Five stars.
February 10, 2019
Beginning to read Moreira’s book in February 2019 I expected to find antiqued agile recipes since the book was release already in 2013. To my surprise the book felt fresh and none of the concepts presented felt deprecated in time. From my experience as Agile Coach, the book contained nothing where I would have said “Wrong!” but many points where I went “Wow, interesting way too look at this…”.
Such wow-moments for me were when Moreira passionately writes about the differences of doing and being agile or when he uses an interesting real life metaphor relating agile journey. His simple visual tool for talking with leadership about agility and the way he looks at organization’s roles (inside and outside agile core) is also worth mentioning. Moreira’s own Agile Deployment Model “Readiness, Implement, Coach, Hone” is elegant in its simplicity.
Moreira also introduced me to a few things I didn’t know previously, such as VFQ-Model and Agility Path, so those were interesting. The chapters on metrics, surveys and customer profiles were especially good and approach with a new angle. Mapping organizational readiness with a survey based of agile principles was also new to me in this form, quite nice indeed! The quotes before the chapters were spot on, almost all of them new to me, which is surprising because I am the biggest quote geek ever. Case studies in the last chapter were nice bonus.
From the raw page count the “readiness assessment” part is mostly interacted with and actual implementation and coaching parts are more succiny. I admit at parts he could have gone deeper. For me such part was coaching. He does mention coaching many times and even lists different coaching activities (eg. in-session coaching, grooming in-house talent, coaching circles) but yet doesn’t really explain how to do that in practical terms. In other areas that didn’t annoy (or disappoint) me but here it felt somewhat shallow. However, this is not a coaching book, per se, so we can find coaching advice elsewhere. We also must remember Moreira does make a solid case for an Agile Coach role already in 2013, when the role was still non-existent (at least in Europe)! Kudos for that level of forward thinking.
Moreira writes well, and clearly articulates from a position of experience. The book is divided into 24 chapters, and each is readable as a single. His style is succint and to the point, which I like. Especially informative were the many diagrams, purposeful and clear. (Btw, the only error I could spot in the whole book was in one diagram, namely Fig. 12-1, where instead “Scrum Team” should have read “Dev Team”…but that’s small potatoes)
Moreira clearly has chosen his writing style to be slightly prescriptive, as he uses many bullet points to list preferred (or expected) manner of things. I suspect this might not be to everybody’s liking. I believe though his angles cater most practical and philosophical needs. I like that when Moreira talks “outside of agile”, he tells readers which discipline he’s borrowing from. When he eg. is talking about waste, value-added work and non-value added work, he refers the source being lean thinking.
I read the book in three days, whilst making study notes of each chapter. This book is unlike any other agile book. It’s prescriptive, sure, but it also allows one to fill in the gaps with own thinking. I think this book just made me a better agilist and this I can’t say from every agile book. I feel somehow “more rounded” and “more confident” than before, hard to describe it actually, and this happens seldom so I’m intrigued by my reaction to the book. I guess the book confirmed some of my assumptions and painted an overarching and understandable landscape of agile.
Needles to say I loved the book, and will be re-visiting it often. These kind of books make one feel alive again and cement the relationship with one's craft. Thank you Mr Moreira. Five stars.
Such wow-moments for me were when Moreira passionately writes about the differences of doing and being agile or when he uses an interesting real life metaphor relating agile journey. His simple visual tool for talking with leadership about agility and the way he looks at organization’s roles (inside and outside agile core) is also worth mentioning. Moreira’s own Agile Deployment Model “Readiness, Implement, Coach, Hone” is elegant in its simplicity.
Moreira also introduced me to a few things I didn’t know previously, such as VFQ-Model and Agility Path, so those were interesting. The chapters on metrics, surveys and customer profiles were especially good and approach with a new angle. Mapping organizational readiness with a survey based of agile principles was also new to me in this form, quite nice indeed! The quotes before the chapters were spot on, almost all of them new to me, which is surprising because I am the biggest quote geek ever. Case studies in the last chapter were nice bonus.
From the raw page count the “readiness assessment” part is mostly interacted with and actual implementation and coaching parts are more succiny. I admit at parts he could have gone deeper. For me such part was coaching. He does mention coaching many times and even lists different coaching activities (eg. in-session coaching, grooming in-house talent, coaching circles) but yet doesn’t really explain how to do that in practical terms. In other areas that didn’t annoy (or disappoint) me but here it felt somewhat shallow. However, this is not a coaching book, per se, so we can find coaching advice elsewhere. We also must remember Moreira does make a solid case for an Agile Coach role already in 2013, when the role was still non-existent (at least in Europe)! Kudos for that level of forward thinking.
Moreira writes well, and clearly articulates from a position of experience. The book is divided into 24 chapters, and each is readable as a single. His style is succint and to the point, which I like. Especially informative were the many diagrams, purposeful and clear. (Btw, the only error I could spot in the whole book was in one diagram, namely Fig. 12-1, where instead “Scrum Team” should have read “Dev Team”…but that’s small potatoes)
Moreira clearly has chosen his writing style to be slightly prescriptive, as he uses many bullet points to list preferred (or expected) manner of things. I suspect this might not be to everybody’s liking. I believe though his angles cater most practical and philosophical needs. I like that when Moreira talks “outside of agile”, he tells readers which discipline he’s borrowing from. When he eg. is talking about waste, value-added work and non-value added work, he refers the source being lean thinking.
I read the book in three days, whilst making study notes of each chapter. This book is unlike any other agile book. It’s prescriptive, sure, but it also allows one to fill in the gaps with own thinking. I think this book just made me a better agilist and this I can’t say from every agile book. I feel somehow “more rounded” and “more confident” than before, hard to describe it actually, and this happens seldom so I’m intrigued by my reaction to the book. I guess the book confirmed some of my assumptions and painted an overarching and understandable landscape of agile.
Needles to say I loved the book, and will be re-visiting it often. These kind of books make one feel alive again and cement the relationship with one's craft. Thank you Mr Moreira. Five stars.
March 2, 2015
In general, there are two fundamental features to the adoption of agile development methods. The first is that there is no fixed set of rules to an agile implementation. The very nature and power of agile development is the informal nature, where developers are expected to form short-term teams to complete a task, disband and reform into different teams all based on the specific needs of the moment. While this gives the staff developers are great degree of professional and intellectual freedom, it also can increase the pressure to deliver.
The second is that agile requires a dismantling of the traditional command and control system where each person is an entry in a hierarchical chart with a direct report and possibly a team of subordinates. Workers at the lower levels are no longer given specific instructions regarding what to do, which many people can find frightening. Orders from a superior can be comforting to those that lack confidence in their ability to adapt to changing conditions. It provides a natural excuse for many things that can go wrong.
Despite these problems, there are many rewards to the adoption of agile methods, given the rapidity of change in the modern world, some businesses are almost required to develop and implement an agile development philosophy. Customer feedback is now almost instantaneous and can be fed through several different channels, including social media, none of which can be dismissed as mere noise.
One of the best aspects of this book is the declaration that revenue is a trailing indicator of success; in many cases by the time the value of that metric is known the results are preordained and not always positive. Moreira describes the critical leading indicators of project success and emphasizes what should be the primary goal of all development, the complete understanding of the Minimal Viable Product (MVP), the lowest and most significant bar that must be achieved.
Metrics to aid understanding, tactics to use when adopting agile, ways to convince staff of the wisdom of agile and the allaying of their fears, the day-to-day actions as well as the setting of regular and quickly achievable goals are all covered in great detail. People are not genuinely hypocritical when they want freedom in their work and then are afraid that they may get it. That is just human nature.
There are many natural and acceptable concerns that people have when you take away the structure of their work environment, most people want the emotional comfort of being told what to do. Moreira not only tells you what the agile development methods are, he also serves as a psychologist and sociologist in explaining how to convince employees and customers the agile path is the better one. It is a fundamental shift in the company culture, which is a complex thing to do.
This book was made available for free for review purposes and this review appears on Amazon
The second is that agile requires a dismantling of the traditional command and control system where each person is an entry in a hierarchical chart with a direct report and possibly a team of subordinates. Workers at the lower levels are no longer given specific instructions regarding what to do, which many people can find frightening. Orders from a superior can be comforting to those that lack confidence in their ability to adapt to changing conditions. It provides a natural excuse for many things that can go wrong.
Despite these problems, there are many rewards to the adoption of agile methods, given the rapidity of change in the modern world, some businesses are almost required to develop and implement an agile development philosophy. Customer feedback is now almost instantaneous and can be fed through several different channels, including social media, none of which can be dismissed as mere noise.
One of the best aspects of this book is the declaration that revenue is a trailing indicator of success; in many cases by the time the value of that metric is known the results are preordained and not always positive. Moreira describes the critical leading indicators of project success and emphasizes what should be the primary goal of all development, the complete understanding of the Minimal Viable Product (MVP), the lowest and most significant bar that must be achieved.
Metrics to aid understanding, tactics to use when adopting agile, ways to convince staff of the wisdom of agile and the allaying of their fears, the day-to-day actions as well as the setting of regular and quickly achievable goals are all covered in great detail. People are not genuinely hypocritical when they want freedom in their work and then are afraid that they may get it. That is just human nature.
There are many natural and acceptable concerns that people have when you take away the structure of their work environment, most people want the emotional comfort of being told what to do. Moreira not only tells you what the agile development methods are, he also serves as a psychologist and sociologist in explaining how to convince employees and customers the agile path is the better one. It is a fundamental shift in the company culture, which is a complex thing to do.
This book was made available for free for review purposes and this review appears on Amazon
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews