What fascinates me the most in the Lean software development approach is the quality of the people that support it. The Poppendieck are not an exception to this rule. Their book achieves the seemingly contradictory goals of being very insightful but still easy and captivating to read. It might be however easier to have the right flow when you are a Lean adept ;o)

I have just finished reading the great book “Leading Lean Software Development” by Mary and Tom Poppendieck and I wanted to share with you two quotes excerpted from it.

OpenSourceScrum.com is a new directory of open source tools for Scrum containing also links to tools reviews.

If you know a missing tool or a good review of an included tool, just let us know.

This book provides a structured approach that will help programmers to identify and remove bugs in code. It is based on a four steps process: Reproduce, Diagnose, Fix, Reflect. For each activity, the author provides practical material on how perform it. The second part gives a higher vision of the debugging process and deal with topics like communicating with users or prioritizing bugs treatment. Finally, the book discusses special situations and the relationship between bugs and other areas of software development (source control, build, etc.).

This article  presents how to lead the transition to an Agile process.

I am currently reading the excellent "Debug It!" book written by Paul Butcher and I wanted to share with you some of the little gems that I have found in it.

This article presents what are the Scrum Product Owner activities and how he has to keep the balance of interests between the Scrum team and the other stakeholders.

Author: Marion Eickmann, CEO of agile42, www.agile42.com, first published in German in the IX-Magazin 8/2009 

The fact that this book is already at his second edition after a first publication in 2004 says something about its value. In one of his definition of Agile, Jim Highsmith says, “Agility is the ability to balance flexibility and stability”. I will say that his book balances nicely high level thinking and a pragmatic approach. The book provides a framework for running agile projects and gives also insight in some more neglected related topics like managing projects portfolios or measuring the success of Agile projects.

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* Refactoring Large Software Systems
* An Introduction to Domain Driven Design    
* Agile Coaching Tips
* Are Enterprise AJAX Applications Doomed…Or Are We?
* Does Process Improvement Really Pay Off?
* SQuirreL SQL Client

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I am currently reading the book “Agile Project Management” from Jim Highsmith. I will publish a review later on this blog, but in the meantime I would like to share some of the interesting quotes that I have found in the book. I am sure they will make sense to software project managers… and developers ;o)