Flexible Development, Manage It, and Continuous Integration

During my hiatus from this blog since the summer, I still managed to keep up with a few of my book reviews for The Agile Journal. Here they are (with hyperlinks) ...

Flexible Development: Building Agility for Changing Markets by Preston G. Smith published September 2007 by Jossey-Bass My rating: Very good for those looking to apply Agile principles outside of software development. And a very useful concept and measure of flexibility. Read the full review in the December 2007 Agile Journal (also see the book's website at www.flexibledevelopment.com)

Manage It! Your guide to Modern Project Management by Johanna Rothman published June 2007 by the PragmaticProgrammer's Pragmatic Bookshelf My rating: Outstanding! If a budding project manager came to me, with knowledge of text-book project management concepts and project management tools, and asked me "what one book would you recommend to help me swiftly bridge the gap from theory into modern-practice that would most increase my chances of succeeding" I'd be hard pressed to find another book that I'd recommend more highly than Manage It! Read the full review in the November 2007 Agile Journal.

Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk by Paul Duvall, Steve Matyas, and Andrew Glover published June 2007 in the Addison-Wesley Signature Series My rating: Outstanding! For those of you seeking a book on the subject of Continuous Integration (a.k.a. "CI") ... look no further. The book you have got to run out and get is here! No other book to date even comes close to being such a comprehensive and authoritative source of principles, practices, and current technologies and resources about continuous integration. Read the full review in the October 2007 Agile Journal (also see the book's website at www.integratebutton.com)

Visual Studio Team System Better Software Development for Agile Teams by Will Stott & James Newkirk published May 2007 by Addison-Wesley Professional My rating: A highly practical and comprehensive "nuts and bolts" guide for how to use Microsoft's Team System to do eXtreme Programming (XP) using the Agile values. Read the full review in the August 2007 Agile Journal (also see the book's companion site at www.bettersoftwaredevelopment.org)

Oh, and don't forget to look for my upcoming review of The Art of Agile Development in the January 2008 issue of the Agile Journal.