The book is split up into three parts: Getting Started, Practicing XP, and Mastering Agility. The focus is almost exclusively on Extreme Programming (XP) and its practices, and at one point during reviews of draft chapters I had commented that the book seemed more about the craft of XP rather than the more general art of agility. That is certainly true, but it is also much more. The chapters on Mastering Agility, and even much of the insights generously sprinkled throughout the rest of the text, manage to transcend the specifics of XP and get to the crux of what it means for a software development project to be agile.

The book is ideally suited for someone who is a member or lead of a small-to-moderate sized project team. It gives them everything they need to know to gain an initial understanding of Agile/XP, start practicing it, and then tweak and tune it as necessary as they increase their understanding and effectiveness with it.

This book is very clearly aimed technical practitioners and coaches. For those who are more interested in a book covering more of the management and planning aspects of how to adapt agile to a large, multi-sited corporate environment, this is probably not the book for you (although there are certainly many helpful hints about how one can adapt some of the practices in a geographically dispersed setting). Several of XP's project management practices are also covered. And while there are certainly other books that focus more specifically on Agile project management in particular, there is still plenty of practical project-management related knowledge that is important for software development practitioners to know which the authors do an outstanding job of explaining.

One of the best things about the book is the way it is so thoroughly organized beyond the mere parts and chapters:

• Practically every other page has at least one "tip," "note," or key point highlighted in large font.
• All throughout each described practice are thumb-tabs visible from the side of the book (when it is closed) which call out the "Allies" (other practices) that synergistically support that practice and the page each supporting practice is described on.
• Each practice also has a very visible note indicating its target audience, as well as sections for how-to, common questions, results, contraindications, alternatives, and often one or more prerequisites and/or organizational strategies to help the reader see how to apply it in his own workplace.
• The supporting pictures, graphs, charts, and tables are all clear and compelling.
• The authors clearly know that there is more than just the technical side of development and development practices. They explicitly address specific key factors of each practice related to underlying agile principles, organizational culture, and teamwork and collaboration.

Throughout each page of the book, it instills within the reader the very attitude of collaboration and technical excellence that underlies the principles and practices it describes.

I can't think of a better XP practitioner-guide to date that conveys both the practices and principles of XP for novices and intermediate-level readers, and also goes beyond explaining them to provide quintessential insights, tips, contraindications, alternatives, and organizational strategies for how to overcome the many technical and organizational barriers that can stall an otherwise successful attempt adopting XP.

About the Reviewer
Brad Appleton is an enterprise SCM/ALM solution architect for a Fortune 100 technology company. Currently he helps projects and teams adopt and apply agile development & SCM practices. Brad also author's the Agile CM Environments blog, and is co-author of Software Configuration Management Patterns: Effective Teamwork, Practical Integration, the "Agile SCM" column in CMCrossroads.com's CM Journal, and is a former section editor for The C++ Report. Since 1987, Brad has extensive experience using, developing, and supporting SCM environments for teams of all shapes and sizes. He holds an M.S. in Software Engineering and a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics.

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