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FEATURED BOOK: Changing Software Development - Learning to Become Agile, by Allan Kelly |
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Written by Brad Appleton
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Sunday, 07 September 2008 |
 Allan Kelly's book Changing
Software Development: Learning to Become Agile is not what you might
expect at first. It's not about the practices and techniques to use in order to
adopt and adapt Agile development, nor about how to execute and master various
Agile practices. This book is about how Agile development and its adoption is
really the application of knowledge management, learning organizations, and
organizational change management. Those seeking a deeper understanding of this
connection and what it means when trying to adopt agility won't be
disappointed.
This ~230 page book is divided into 12 chapters. Chapter 1
is simply a brief introduction to the purpose and premise of the book, which
includes defining software development as knowledge work. I liked this because
I'm a big fan of Philip Armour's
work in this area in The
Laws of Software Process, where Armour argues early in the book that software is not a product but rather a medium
for storing executable knowledge (and therefore software development is a
knowledge creation activity). I also like the early reference to Peter
Drucker's work in this area. 
The second chapter is about "Understanding Agile", particularly the
values and principles of Agile and Lean and their underlying roots. Chapters
3-5 are about "Knowledge creation & management", "Learning", and "Learning
organizations" and introduce us to the basic vocabulary, theory and models of
those domains.[AE1]
Chapter 6 takes a step away from the previous three to
discuss IT and the present nature of IT work and IT itself as an agent of
change. Then Kelly discusses organizational change management in depth in the
next three chapters (7-9). My favorite chapter is the one on change models
(chapter 8) where we get to learn about each of the following theories: Lewin,
Satir, Kotter, Theory E, Theory 0, and Appreciative Inquiry.
The last three chapters (10-12) focus on leading and
empowering individuals (through change), planning change, and final advice and
recap of the books three key interlocking ideas:
-
Drive
to do better
- Systems
thinking
- Continual
change
Those looking for more material from Allan Kelly would do well to read his blog and online
excerpts of the book from the publisher. The more industrious among us may
even be interested in his 2003 MBA dissertation on Software
Engineering as Organizational Learning. (Allan has even written an occasional article
for us here at the Agile Journal. :-)
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.
[AE1]Added
quotes for consistency with "Understanding Agile".
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