Agile Productivity Unleashed

Jamie Lynn Cooke has 27 years of experience as a senior business analyst and solutions consultant, working with more than 130 public and private sector organisations throughout Australia, Canada, and the United States. Her background includes business case development; strategic and operational reviews; business process modeling, mapping, and optimization; product and project management on small to multi-million-dollar initiatives; quality management; risk analysis and mitigation; developing/conducting training courses; workshop delivery; and refining e-business strategies. She is the author of Agile Principles Unleashed, a book written specifically to explain Agile in non-technical business terms to managers and executives outside of the IT industry; Agile: An Executive Guide: Real results from IT budgets, which gives IT executives the tools and strategies needed for bottom-line business decisions on using Agile methodologies; Everything you want to know about Agile: How to get Agile results in a less-than-Agile organisation, which gives readers strategies for aligning Agile work within the reporting, budgeting, staffing, and governance constraints of their organisation; and PRINCE2 Agile¿ An Implementation Pocket Guide: Step-by-step advice for every project type, a hands-on guide for successfully delivering projects within the PRINCE2 Agile¿ framework.

In this new edition of her award-winning book, Jamie Lynn Cooke explains the principles of Agile, shows why it works, and demonstrates how to use Agile to significantly increase productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction in any industry.It shows how Agile approaches can give you:¿ A faster, more flexible and highly responsive framework, allowing your organisation to leverage internal and external changes more quickly.¿ Significantly more efficient use of resources and time, freeing up staff for greater innovation and value creation.¿ Direct stakeholder engagement, resulting in better customer relationships and more compelling product development.Written for managers and business professionals, the book presents a range of proven Agile methods including Scrum®, Kanban, Feature Driven Development¿ (FDD¿) and the Dynamic Systems Development Method® (DSDM®) in clear business language. The author then devotes a chapter to each of the 12 Agile principles that make these approaches consistently successful, and details how to use these methods to tackle the core challenges faced by every organization.The book concludes with in-depth case study that compares Agile with traditional approaches for achieving three common business objectives, followed by step-by-step guidelines to making Agile work for your organization, and a range of resources for further reading.Read this book and learn how to unleash the potential of Agile in your organization.About the authorJamie Lynn Cooke has 24 years of experience as a senior business analyst and solutions consultant, working with more than 130 public and private sector organizations throughout Australia, Canada and the United States. She has been working hands on with Agile approaches since 2003.The first edition of Agile Productivity Unleashed won the AXIOM Business Book Awards Bronze Medal for TQM/Productivity Books in 2011

Dedication; Contents; Introduction; Agile: an executive summary; The path forward; 1: Agile in a Nutshell; 2: Why is Agile So Effective? 3: Why Don't More Organizations Use Agile? 4: Agile Sounds Good, But -; 5: Responsive Planning; 6: Business-value-driven Work; 7: Hands-on Business Outputs; : Real-time Customer Feedback; 9: Immovable Deadlines; 10: Management by Self-motivation; 11: "Just-in-time" Communication; 12: Immediate Status Tracking; 13: Waste Management; 14: Constantly Measurable Quality; 15: Rearview Mirror Checking; 16: Continuous Improvement; A Case Study: Traditional versus Agile Approaches; 17: Selecting Agile Approaches That Best Meet Your Needs; 18: Introducing Agile Within Your Organization; 19: Using Agile Tools; 20: Expanding the Use of Agile in Your Organization; Selected Agile case studies; Information on TQM and KAIZEN; Cost/benefit calculation resources; Other industry resources; Author's Note on Agile Resources; ITG Resources