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Author: Mike Cohn
ISBN : B004X1D3TC
New from $25.49
Format: PDF, EPUB
Direct download links available Free Agile Estimating and Planning for everyone book mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link
This is the eBook version of the printed book.
Praise for Agile Estimating and Planning
"Traditional, deterministic approaches to planning and estimating simply don't cut it on the slippery slopes of today's dynamic, change-driven projects. Mike Cohn's breakthrough book gives us not only the philosophy, but also the guidelines and a proven set of tools that we need to succeed in planning, estimating, and scheduling projects with a high uncertainty factor. At the same time, the author never loses sight of the need to deliver business value to the customer each step of the way."
—Doug DeCarlo, author of eXtreme Project Management: Using Leadership, Principles and Tools to Deliver Value in the Face of Volatility (Jossey-Bass, 2004)
"We know how to build predictive plans and manage them. But building plans that only estimate the future and then embrace change, challenge most of our training and skills. In Agile Estimating and Planning, Mike Cohn once again fills a hole in the Agile practices, this time by showing us a workable approach to Agile estimating and planning. Mike delves into the nooks and crannies of the subject and anticipates many of the questions and nuances of this topic. Students of Agile processes will recognize that this book is truly about agility, bridging many of the practices between Scrum and ExtremeProgramming."
—Ken Schwaber, Scrum evangelist, Agile Alliance cofounder, and signatory to the Agile Manifesto
"In Agile Estimating and Planning, Mike Cohn has, for the first time, brought together most everything that the Agile community has learned about the subject. The book is clear, well organized, and a pleasant and valuable read. It goes into all the necessary detail, and at the same time keeps the reader's burden low. We can dig in as deeply as we need to, without too much detail before we need it. The book really brings together everything we have learned about Agile estimation and planning over the past decade. It will serve its readers well."
—Ron Jeffries, author of Extreme Programming Installed (Addison-Wesley, 2001) and Extreme Programming Adventures in C# (Microsoft Press, 2004)
"Agile Estimating and Planning provides a view of planning that's balanced between theory and practice, and it is supported by enough concrete experiences to lend it credibility. I particularly like the quote 'planning is a quest for value.' It points to a new, more positive attitude toward planning that goes beyond the 'necessary evil' view that I sometimes hold."
—Kent Beck, author of Extreme Programming Explained, Second Edition (Addison-Wesley, 2005)
"Up-front planning is still the most critical part of software development. Agile software development requires Agile planning techniques. This book shows you how to employ Agile planning in a succinct, practical, and easy-to-follow manner."
—Adam Rogers, Ultimate Software
"Mike does a great follow-up to User Stories Applied by continuing to provide Agile teams with the practical approaches and techniques to increase agility. In this book, Mike provides time-proven and well-tested methods for being successful with the multiple levels of planning and estimating required by Agile. This book is the first to detail the disciplines of Agile estimating and planning, in ways that rival my 1980 civil engineering texts on CPM Planning and Estimating."
—Ryan Martens, President and Founder, Rally Software Development Corporation
"With insight and clarity, Mike Cohn shows how to effectively produce software of high business value. With Agile estimation and planning, you focus effort where it really counts, and continue to do so as circumstances change."
—Rick Mugridge, Rimu Research Ltd....Direct download links available for Free Agile Estimating and Planning
- File Size: 2979 KB
- Print Length: 368 pages
- Simultaneous Device Usage: Up to 5 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits
- Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (November 1, 2005)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B004X1D3TC
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #122,385 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
Free Agile Estimating and Planning
Better planning, as Mary Poppendieck (author of "Lean Software Development") points out, results in a higher standard of living for the individual, for the team, and for the organization. With "Agile Estimating and Planning", Mike Cohn delivers a beautifully pragmatic approach for pushing us into the notion that this higher standard of living is completely attainable for our software development projects in this lifetime.
Mike's earlier book, "User Stories Applied" has been one of my most cited books when working with teams new to agile software development. Understanding the usefulness of the story concept as the base unit of function delivery has put these new teams in a good steady stride for being realiably realistic about their work delivery toward feature completion.
With Mike's "AE&P", I now have a fully referenceable guide that moves the team story planning pragmatics to the next level: bringing multiple planning approaches to bear at multiple levels for multiple measures of software feature acceptance and completion. In his usual style, Mike delivers his guidance with wonderfully accessible non-software analogies. For example, "How long is a football game?" and "How long will it take me to move my pile of dirt?" for understanding the distinction between effort (or ideal hours/days)and duration (total calendar hours/days). These simple mental models set the stage for ruthlessly correcting the many misunderstood atrributes of planning and its life partner estimating. Having shattered the myths of task-based Gantt Charts, PERT charts, and Work Breakdown Structures as completely repeatable prediction models for planning and estimation, Mike rebuilds the planning toolbox with practices that truly work.
The book is well structured and easy to read. In my humble opinion, it comes with a strong "buy" rating for any Agile practitioner or a current PMI certified person who wants to contribute to the knowledge economy of ever changing requirements. The book is right sized (finish in a coast to coast trip in US). Practical in its content, it provides lots of examples and case studies, from software as well as non software fields to illustrate the concepts. The detailed case study at the end of the book is invaluable.
Several chapters were much thought provoking, specially how to handle team dynamics and cross team estimation. The book did not right fully delve into any details of that, it's a topic for another time.
Part I of the books sets up the context.
Part II details on estimating the size, and the techniques and tools for doing that; in fact it comes with some simple tools, which can be really customized and expanded quickly.
Part III caters to what I call "value add planning" planning the work by prioritizing by business value, The books touches the concepts of financial project analysis, however there are better books for that, and the author provides the references.
Part IV brings in the concept of time, and the handling of "estimating for effort" and estimating for duration" is simply superb. Also an entire chapter is dedicated to Buffering and its need and for multi-team projects.
Part V presents tools and motivations for monitoring and communicating.
Part VI presents why Agile Planning works, and honestly I skipped it, expect the guidelines ( Page 254) which I read to validate my knowledge.
If there is one thing that I would change in the book, it would be the story point example with dogs.