Section 1.5. Outline of This Book
1.5. Outline of This BookTo give a solid foundation for the transition, Chapter 2 broadens the definition of agility beyond the traditional definition and provides a justification for the transition this book advocates. It also gives a brief overview of agile values because agile teams are generally structured and managed differently from plan-driven organizations. This overview is for background information only and refers the reader to other texts on this topic. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 define the three phases of the transition toward agility. Chapter 6 provides a topical index into the process innovations, which are grouped by the part of the process they affect. The goal of this chapter is to compare and contrast the process innovations that address similar issues. One of the risks of this strategy is that various parts of your process might be interconnected in a way of which you are unaware. For example, in XP, pair programming is an essential part of code review and a mechanism for communication. However, without team ownership of code, pair programming can only be applied in a limited fashion. Therefore, as you begin to refactor your process, it is important that you look for the broader effects that your change may cause. Chapter 6 is designed to help you find those relationships. Chapter 7 defines the process smells and possible process innovations. Because each smell is really a symptom of an underlying problem, there is not a one-to-one mapping from smell to process innovation. This chapter suggests process innovations based on the suspected underlying cause of the smell. |
