PLAN FOR IMPROVISATION

In Succeeding with Agile , Mike Cohn gives organizations a handbook for how to succeed using Agile practices and principals. If you are picking up this book, keep in mind that he assumes you have some experience with Agile before you begin. He starts the book by presenting some agile adoption patterns then discusses how and why those patterns are resisted by individuals within the organization. Next he spends a number of chapters explaining new roles and how existing ones change in an organization after agile practices are adopted. I particularly like when he describes a practice, or role, in detail; then steps back to discuss how it will affect each role in an organization and how to overcome resistance. The remainder of the book covers additional topics about agile adoption that aren't large enough to cover a chapter themselves. By the time you get to chapter 20 he is discussing "Human Resources, Facilities, and the PMO." I especially liked the end, "You're

photo credit: victoriapeckham We have reached the most critical point on a project I'm working on. After a few months we think we know enough about the domain and application to build a product road map that will take us to the first public release. The proof of concept is complete. The design team has created a remarkable, genera changing product. Additionally, the system is designed around real users we have been able to talk to and get feedback from. We have put together an unbelievably good development team and built a backlog of stories with estimates. We have been here before. Putting together a design and backlog of stories is something we have done countless times... The easy part is over. Now the hard part begins. Our research and user feedback tells us we have multiple potentialcustomer groups we can build the system for. On one hand this is great news. We have a number of potential markets to choose from. On the other, we don't have an infinite amount of