The Art of Agile Development contains practical guidance for anyone considering or applying agile development for building valuable software. Plenty of books describe what agile development is or why it helps software projects succeed, but very few combine information for developers, managers, testers, and customers into a single package that they can apply directly.

This book provides no-nonsense advice on agile planning, development, delivery, and management taken from the authors' many years of experience with Extreme Programming (XP). You get a gestalt view of the agile development process, including comprehensive guidance for non-technical readers and hands-on technical practices for developers and testers.

The Art of Agile Development gives you clear answers to questions such as:

• How can we adopt agile development?
• Do we really need to pair program?
• What metrics should we report?
• What if I can't get my customer to participate?
• How much documentation should we write?
• When do we design and architect?
• As a non-developer, how should I work with my agile team?
• Where is my product roadmap?
• How does QA fit in?

The book teaches you how to adopt XP practices, describes each practice in detail, then discusses principles that will allow you to modify XP and create your own agile method. In particular, this book tackles the difficult aspects of agile development: the need for cooperation and trust among team members.

Whether you're currently part of an agile team, working with an agile team, or interested in agile development, this book provides the practical tips you need to start practicing agile development. As your experience grows, the book will grow with you, providing exercises and information that will teach you first to understand the rules of agile development, break them, and ultimately abandon rules altogether as you master the art of agile development.

About the Author

James Shore, signatory number ten to the Agile Manifesto, has been coaching agile teams large and small before they were called agile. He brings both breadth and depth to his discussion of agile development. In 2005, the Agile Alliance recognized James with their most significant award, the Gordon Pask Award for Contributions to Agile Practice. James is an internationally recognized speaker who consults for companies interested in agile development. He writes about agile development on his top-ranked blog, jamesshore.com. chromatic is the technical editor of the O'Reilly Network, specializing in programming, Linux®, and open source development. Among other books for O'Reilly, he is the author of the "Extreme Programming Pocket Guide", which distilled Extreme Programming into a concise explanation and reference. Many readers have commented that they buy copies for all of their customers to explain how they work. Ward Cunningham (co-creator of Extreme Programming) considers it the best explanation of the practice.