Enjoy and have fun! Agile Game Development with Scrum, Clinton Keith Succeeding with Agile, Mike Cohn Kanban Workbook by Karen Greaves and Sam Laing Henrik Kniberg: Scrum and XP From the Trenches Also available as a downloadable PDF. If you’re a newcomer to Scrum, and you’re going to read only one Scrum book, make it this one. Henrik Kniberg and Mattias Skarin: Kanban and Scrum – Making the most of both In the style of Scrum and XP from the Trenches, this book is ultra-practical and useful without becoming a “guide for dummies.” Available as a print book and as a downloadable PDF. Ken Schwaber & Mike Beedle: Agile Software Development with Scrum The original Scrum book. Good, clear overview of the practices and principles of Scrum. It is somewhat out-of-date now, as Scrum has progressed since the book was written, but it is still a valuable read. Menlo Innovations Team: Innovative Exploration A picture book about how Menlo Innovations does XP (really, truly, fully). Great for showing people what it should look like and how it should work when done well. Mike Cohn: User Stories Applied This clear and simple book covers the aspects of writing, estimating, prioritizing and committing to product requirements. Essential reading for Product Owners. Mike Cohn: Agile Estimating and Planning What are story points again? Why do we use them and not estimated hours? This book will refresh you on these topics and help you become good at estimation and release planning. Mike Cohn: What is agile and Scrum and Scrum described Scrum Alliance: What is Scrum InfoQ interview with Jeff Sutherland: Scrum and Not Scrum — with video. Tobias Mayer: Essence of Scrum Lyssa Adkins: The Road from Project Manager to Agile Coach YouTube video, in two parts. Part two is here. Michael James: A Scrum Master’s Checklist Lyssa Adkins and Michael K. Spayd: The Manager’s Role in Agile Lyssa Adkins’ video: Interlocking Roles in Agile Jim Highsmith: Agile Project Management – Creating Innovative Products Good overview of Agile approaches to project management. This is more “managerial” and offers some good ideas for working with customers. 36 Virtual Team Building activities for working remotely Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson Laura Whitworth, et. al.: Co-Active Coaching, 2nd Edition: New Skills for Coaching People Toward Success in Work and Life Karen Kimsey House, et. al.: Co-Active Coaching, 3th Edition: Changing Business, Transforming Lives Powerful Questions Cards from the Coaching Agile Teams class Deb Preuss: Powerful Questions Cards (more!) Tony Stoltzfus: Coaching Questions: A Coach’s Guide to Powerful Asking Skills Powerful Questions iPhone, iPad and DRIOD app: CTI Thinkpal Coaching Agile Teams, Lyssa Adkins International Coach Federation European Mentoring and Coaching Council Coaches Training Institute Center for Right Relationship Attractor Newfield Network Fernando Lopez: Antidotes for Team Toxins Howard Guttman: Great Business Teams Susan Scott: Fierce Conversations The Facilitators Guide to Participatory Decisions Making – Sam Kaner Gamestorming by Dave Gray System’s Thinking Playbook by Linda Booth Sweeney and Dennis Meadows The Coach’s Guide to Facilitation – Karen Greaves and Sam Laing Facilitating with Ease by Ingrid Bens, this book is full of great exercises, techniques, & mindsets for facilitators. Collaboration Explained by Jean Tabaka, a great book for agile coaches about being a good facilitator. Check out the section with starter agendas for sprint planning and other agile meetings. Agile Retrospectives by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen, to help you create retrospectives that have people get up from the conference room table and come up with real insights. Our copy of this one has stickies all over it and coffee stains and worn out pages. That’s how much we use it. The Tao of Holding Space: 81 short chapters on facilitating open space by Chris Corrigan, a grounding set of principles for creating space in one’s facilitation. Printed cards by Deborah Preuss. Rachel Davies and Liz Sedley, Agile Coaching Christopher Avery: Teamwork is an Individual Skill: Getting Your Work Done While Sharing Responsibility Continuous Delivery by Jez Humble More Agile Testing by Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory Nature of software development by Ron Jeffries Agile Testing, Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory Running Tested Features and Technical Debt by Ron Jeffries Kent Beck: Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change One of the first Agile books. Focuses mainly (but not solely) on the engineering practices, and supplies good overall context for creating an Agile organization. Scaling Lean & Agile Development, Craig Larman & Bas Vodde The New How by Nilofer Merchant Start with Why by Simon Sinek The Lean Startup, Eric Ries groundbreaking book on bringing the Agile and Lean mindset to the entrepreneurial world, even in large organizations. Principles of Product Development Flow, Donald Reinertsen’s wonderful book and the new economics of product development, based on lean thinking, and how product development is different than lean manufacturing. Enthiosys’ Agile Product Roadmaps and Product Management Holistic product design and development – Jeff Patton Lean A3 Process, a problem solving process started at Toyota Value Stream Mapping – measuring value add vs. waste times in business processes Agile Product Management with Scrum: Creating Products that Customers Love, Roman Pichler Mike Cohn: Want Better Software? Just Ask Mike Cohn: Prioritizing Your Product Backlog Luke Hohmann: Innovation Games David Rico: The Business Value of Agile Software Methods When you need some more convincing data, here are Waterfall vs Agile statistics vs industry benchmarks from QSM Associates and Michael Mah- article + webinar video lesson with Michael Mah The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni Maverick by Ricardo Semler The Leadership Circle Profile – a comprehensive 360 assessment that helps you get a clear view into your leadership effectiveness. Michael Spayd is a certified facilitator of this profile and has the ability to administer it and help individuals and groups understand the results. Leadership in a Wiki World, Rod Collins Bill Schneider: The Reengineering Alternative: A Plan for Making your Current Culture Work. Dan Pink: Drive: The Surprising Truth about what Motivates Us The Arbinger Institute: The Anatomy of Peace The Arbinger Institute: Leadership and Self-Deception Lee Devin & Rob Austin: Artful Making Steven Johnson: Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software Tom DeMarco: Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency Margaret Wheatley: Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World Change model theorists who have written many books: Darryl Conner, John Kotter Peter Block: The Answer to How is Yes Tom Peters: Re-imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age Peter Senge and others: Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society Bill Joiner and Stephen Josephs: Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery for Anticipating and Initiating Change The leaders we need now are not heroes, they are synergists who bring the best out in everyone (including themselves). This book gives you a clear model of the levels of leadership in play now and where we are going with the new breeds of leadership (and why we must). Jon Katzenbach, Douglas Smith: Wisdom of Teams Much foundational information about teams is in this classic, including the difference between a working group, pseudo team and team. It helps you know which of these you currently have. Umair Haque : The Builder’s Manifesto Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders, Jurgen Appelo Daniel Goleman: Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence J. Richard Hackman: Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances Losada and Heaphy: The Role of Positivity and Connectivity in the Performance of Business Teams: A Nonlinear Dynamics Model Resources
Categories
Agile & Lean
Working Remotely
Professional Coaching
A great book for getting a good introduction to coaching skills for agile coaches, such as powerful questions. Includes an appendix of hundreds of powerful questions, as well as other “templates” for coaches.
This is the latest version of this book and has some wonderful updates to the co-active model. It does not contain the Powerful Questions appendix.
This is the full-of-easy-and-useful-stuff book that David and Allison love.
Lists all accredited coaching schools and administers coaching credentials.
Lists all accredited coaching schools in Europe.
The individual coaching training school Michael and Lyssa went to.
Coach training school offering Organization and Relationship Systems Coaching (team coaching).
Systemic Coaching offered in Denmark
Executive coaching school
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The idea of conflict protocols originates in this book.
Because you have a lot of fierce conversations as an agile coach. Might as well get good at them. Facilitation
Mentoring
A very practical and useful guide for coaching teams. Wonderful for new agile coaches.
This is a must-have book for Agile team members. It contains tests and tools to help you become the kind of team member that creates astonishing results. Teaching
Technical Mastery
Business Mastery
Also take a look at Mike’s other available papers. Mike Cohn has a very pragmatic approach to Scrum and writes in a very clear and succinct way.
This page has a downloadable version of slides we cover in class, and a video of Mike covering the material himself. Check that out. He is the master of this topic.
For when the product owner is just “winging it” and has no clue what the team should really build. These are a collection of serious games that tap into what customers, vendors, and partners really want and will really buy.
This book gives you all the numbers and formulas you could possibly want on why Agile methods produce more value than other ways of working. Agile Transformation
This book describes the 4 corporate cultures and gives a simple diagnostic tool to see which culture your corporation might be. More comprehensive diagnostics for corporate culture and for your leadership-culturelink are also available from certified facilitators such as Michael Spayd.
What motivates people, really? (hint: it’s not raises or public embarrassment). For a short burst of this book in 15 minutes, see the TED talk on The Surprising Science of Motivation.
For helping you turn the ratio around so that you are spending much more time helping things go right rather than dealing with things that are going wrong. Plus, great ways to get to the heart of conflict on your teams (and within yourself).
Essential reading for any manager, but especially for Agile Coaches.
This is an excellent book that explores how methods used in creative fields such as theatre can be applied to managing knowledge-based projects.
Why agile teams are more like ecosystems than machines is explained with lots of examples in this book.
This book is inspiring and surprising; it is like a whack to the side of the head.
Great material on why the mechanistic view of the workforce no longer works. What worked for me: start with Chapter 8 then go back to the heavier science at the beginning.
A great book for helping your managers (and you) get past the “how do we do it” and into the “why should we do it.”
This book is visually stunning and its content is powerful. It should get you re-imagining in no time.
This one is a little academic, but if you like that (or can wade through it) the payoff is big. Amazing insights.
It’s Buildership, not Leadership that’s needed today.
While not an agile book per-se, all of the ideas in this book are applicable to coaching agile teams. For example, if you need help convincing a product owner to create a compelling vision, this book helps you explain why that’s so important.
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The Leaders’ Guide to Radical Management, Stephen Denning