Brilliant Agile Project Management: A Practical Guide to Using Agile, Scrum and Kanban

by Rob Cole, Ed Scotcher

What is Agile Project Management and will it bring my project in on time and budget?

If you need a solid understanding of how Agile Project Management works so your projects can fully benefit from using this innovative and powerful approach, this book is essential reading.

Brilliant Agile Project Management does more than just talk you through the techniques and processes - focussing on real-life use of Agile in business environments, it provides practical advice and techniques on how to implement and work with Agile, so you always know exactly what to do and say to make your project a success.

- Assess whether your organisation or project is right for using APM

- Understand how to implement APM into any project

- Overcome common problems with APM



Get up to speed with Agile Project Management and get ahead - fast!

Genres: Business, Nonfiction

200 pages, Paperback

First published December 14, 2015

Reviews

[Dorothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a good primer on Agile, but not on project management. I think the fumbling done here is that the title makes it sound like Agile *is* project management and it's not. Further, I'm a bit disappointed by all the grandiose claims that Agile will solve the world's problems. OK, the authors didn't claim that outright, but the list of benefits ... I had to ask myself, really?

And finally, the book gives the impression that Agile can be applied to *nearly* everything and I completely disagree. Complex projects that require a large set of requirements to be met as the MVP are clearly not candidates. And even small ones, like where I work(ed), the approach was "we're doing agile" but the deliveries were always late, developers never fully understood what client wanted, and required almost complete development before it could be used in the marketplace. Sure, we can sit back and say, well, then we weren't really doing agile. But the authors make it sound like "just start" and the rest will follow.

It's not a panacea. Reality needs to be brought into the discussion. And when we have AI programming and delivering software releases, what happens to agile then? To me, the principles are good, but this too shall pass.

[Yaroslav Brahinets · Rating 5 out of 5]

Agile is often described as a silent revolution, and this book is a great starting point for those who have never used Agile and would like to try it out. The authors provide a historical overview of Agile, explain its benefits, and offer an introduction to several Agile methodologies, with an emphasis on Scrum. The book is replete with motivational examples and stories, including an elegant comparison of sprints to bus stops: if we miss one bus, the next will arrive in just two weeks, so there's no need to worry. In short, the book offers a calm, reassuring introduction to Agile methodologies. This book is easy to read and is a great choice for beginners. However, professionals may find it more beneficial to seek out other options.

[Staņislavs Fisenkovs · Rating 2 out of 5]

5/10

Ar lielām cerībām raudzījos uz šo gramatu kā labu
pārskatu par Agile metodoloģijām, taču sanāca
vilties. Liela daļa grāmatas ir jūsmošana par Agile
bez konkrētiem piemēriem vai skaidrojumiem. Radās
iespaids, ka jebkuru problēmu var atrisināt ar Agile.
Tas sāk atkartoties arī uz grāmatas beigām.
Metodoloģijas apskatītas virspusēji, izskatot tikai
ideālo projekta modeli, kur viss tiek sākts no nulles, ar vīziju par produktu un lietotāju prasībām, taču ne vienmēr projektu vadībā viss ir tik gludi. Teorētiski Agile būtu tas jārisina, bet diemžēl grāmatas autori šo neuzņēmās.

[Simon Collis · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book reads like an advert for “Agile”. The first thirty pages told me nothing about what agile was, how it worked, or why it was a good system, just that it was some kind of magic that would make everything better and I didn’t need to worry any more.

All it makes me think is that “Agile” is snake oil to sell consultancy time and is no better - and going by this book, probably considerably worse - than other project management systems.

[Klvn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It covers very basic material.

[Dzvenyslava Petryshyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very basic info

[Ian Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book in 2017 and I didn’t review it then, so I will do so now as I have just re-read it for a contract I’m working on.
The authors give you a brief overview of agile: what it is, how it developed and how it differs from traditional approaches to project management. They then focus on two popular flavours of agile: Kanban and Scrum. If you want to learn about other agile methodologies, you’ll need to look elsewhere, but the advantage of starting with Kanban is that it is simple to implement. And it works. Scrum is more complicated as the various roles and ceremonies can seem over-complicated for an agile approach, but again, experience shows that when Scrum is done properly it delivers. If you can combine Kanban and Scrum, you hit the sweet spot, and the authors show you very clearly how to do that. There are lots of “brilliant” tips and insights into how to make the theory work for you in practice. There is also a useful chapter on where you can find support in your agile journey. This is a bit dated now as the book was published in 2015, but if anything, the volume of agile resources available on the net is far greater now than it was then.
My one gripe about this book is the authors’ insistence on the need for agile teams to be located in the same physical space. This sounds like common sense, given the premium placed on close communication between team members. However, experience over the last two years shows that it is perfectly possible to run agile projects effectively with remote working. In fact, for many companies, this was the norm long before Covid, especially where companies have outsourced or offshored their development teams. An important part of the skillset of agile practitioners these days is proficiency in the use of the dozens of collaboration tools now available to support virtual teams.
I would recommend this book to anyone considering introducing agile into their organisation or anyone considering a career in agile project management.