Joy of Agility: How to Solve Problems and Succeed Sooner

by Joshua Kerievsky

Agility enables you, your team, and your organization to streamline slow and awkward actions, overcome obstacles quickly, and adapt to change with ease and grace.

Agility isn’t a formula, a framework, nor a set of roles and rituals to follow. It’s a timeless way of being that matures with practice and skill. Becoming agile involves knowing the difference between being quick or hurrying, moving with ease or difficulty, being in or out of balance, graceful or awkward, adaptable or rigid, resourceful or resentful.

With Joy of Agility, Joshua Kerievsky, CEO of Industrial Logic, one of the oldest and most-respected agile consultancies in the world, shows you how to harness agility in work and life to solve problems and succeed sooner.

Kerievsky shares six essential agile mantras, plus unforgettable, real-world stories of agile people and teams, that will empower you to be quick, adaptable, and resourceful in the face of challenges and opportunities.

Learn how to:

• Distinguish between being quick and hurrying
• Gain better balance and collaborate gracefully with others
• Prepare and practice being poised to adapt
• Take deliberate steps to drive out fear
• Grow a solution by starting minimal and evolving
• Overcome obstacles by being readily resourceful

Use the lessons learned in Joy of Agility to transform agility from a mere buzzword into an approach that helps you obtain triumphant results.

Genres: Leadership, Business, Productivity, Software, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Cultural

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2023

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Josh achieves what he sets out to do: Create an easy-to-read compendium of examples of agility that are memorable and retellable. It's a handbook to keep around for anyone who needs anecdotes at hand to quickly illustrate agility for people at all levels of organizations.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a joy this book truly was. This book is all about the behaviors, thinking, values and principles we care about when we talk about agile but told in through stories that carry the essence of agility through them in many walks of life.

I love the 6 mantras that Josh describes, they really hone in on what it actually means to be truly embracing agility in a way that is free from frameworks, processes etc and just gets you thinking and applying this to every day life.

Between this book and Jim Henson's Collaboration Equation my faith in this community is restored for another year.

Thank you for taking the time to share and I spire us, I will be referencing this book to everyone in my path.

[Katie Fialová · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF - it was so boring and once again I proved to myself that I hate self-help and motivational books. (This was a homework from my boss.)

[Gary Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a different type of agile book, free of process prescriptions and full of little stories that illustrate actual examples of being agile. If you like to learn from lots of little stories, this is the perfect book for you.

The author ties groups of stories together into "mantras" like "Be Quick - But Don't Hurry", "Drive Out Fear", and "Be Poised to Adapt".

The author is a well-known technologist, consultant, and speaker, and most definitely knows what he is talking about. I concur with his overall premise that those who promote "Agile" have lost their way a bit and often times focus on things that do not drive true agility. Each of the examples the author provides here give examples of true agility, not a fixed framework that you must follow.

These mantras are principles to follow if you want to improve your agility. The mantras are consistent with many of the principles I have used within my organizations and with my clients, so I am in full-throated support of using them as a guide.

The author also pulls in content and advice from many other well-known authors in the field, so you are also benefitting from a wide collection of tried and true advice.

My one small nitpick when reading the book is that the stories were in fact very independent and despite the organization into mantras, there wasn't a great deal of cohesion between the stories. That shouldn't take away from the value one will get from reading the book, but based on hearing the author speak about his book, I thought that cohesion around the mantras would be more pronounced.

All in all, a quick read and one that I think offers many nuggets of behaviors and practices that we should all consider adding to our repertoire to help us reach greater levels of agility. I would say it is a must read if you are interesting in true agility, both for its content and the approach to agility that we don't get enough of in most of the agile how-to book genre.

[Richard F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joy of Agility was a mixed bag for me, and I think that will be true of most people, mainly because of the breadth of the Agile landscape that Josh Kerievsky navigates.

Josh Kerievsky is a well-known agile coach, and this book is collection of short chapters covering a fairly high-level set of agile topics. Because of this, I think most readers will drill down into some sections more than others, and this might feel like some chapters are being wasted. However I also think that the benefits of the chapters that are the most relatable outweigh the chapters that aren't.

I highlighted many things in this book, some because of reinforcement and other because of novelty, so the evidence shows that I got a lot out of it. I think most readers will get just as much, just different to me!

My only other bugbear is that the concepts are presented at a high level and I couldn't find a lot of practical suggestions. So while the book often says "it is beneficial to behave in this way", it rarely says "for example..."

Overall I would recommend it to others, but be aware that your mileage may vary.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant Book... this is an enlightenment. The six mantras are a refreshing way to look at ones own agility. Joshua Kerievsky does a masterful job of outlining each mantra and then supplying the reader with a broad and deep array of stories to reinforce the message. Knowing one size does not fit all the variety of stories allow the reader to find one that resonates and reinforces the message.

This book will become a reference guide for you to continually revisit for insights, motivation and a reboot whenever one is needed.

I highly recommend this book to all interested in self improvement, the improvement of their teams/org and a great map to 'how' to apply towards solving challenges.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this audiobook on the O'Reilly website for free. I loved Joshua's approach to agility. This book is full of stories on change and how to deal with it. One of of my favorites stories is the one with face change. You can take away so many things but you can also add to it. Joshua is a constant learner like me. When he was not working, he was reading about how to be a consultant and how to get business. This book is worth the read and makes agile fun. You have to resourceful and tackle obstacles with your wisdom. Learning from others and seeing the real problem is hard to do but anything is possible with persistence with a good team and a mentor. See patterns in the world and seek wisdom in others.

[Darya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Agile is the concept that can be well applied in project management as well as in personal life. This is what this book is about. We learn every day from our own actions and experiences and from those from people around us. Being agile is being flexible with decisions, acting based on what is happening around and being strategic in making changes to current plans. This book has plenty of stories with good agile summaries that have strategic wisdom and advice.

[Quinton · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of - if not the best Agile book I have read. I've mostly stopped reading books on Agile because I think Agile has jumped the shark, but I am glad to have read this one. This is where agile should have gone.

I listened to the audiobook while reading which was especially nice as it is read by the author. The book has many very personal stories in it about the author, so to hear them read by him is particularly nice and gives you the feeling that you are getting to know Josh as a person.

[Peter Faulks · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked that it talked about what agility gives you in all aspects of life. It makes you consider how simple principles can have a profound effect. It was easy to translate the stories into all sorts of contexts, including non-software businesses. The style of writing with 2-3 page chapters, each a simple story, made it an easy book to read, and one I’ll keep dipping into.

[EW · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good enough book about agile, but having read a few of them now I can`t say I learned much new stuff in this one. The content to me is a bit "bulletpointy", not much story. All in all a good collection of examples and good tips, nothing more.

[Chris Downey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. Jam packed full of interesting stories and references. A timely reminder of what agile is all about.

[Steve Fenton · Rating 5 out of 5]

With a multitude of micro-chapters, Josh plants ideas in your head and gives them a good water. This is such a great book for inspiring ideas on lean and agile.

[Ines · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stories to inspire and find ways to improve yourself and your team