Agile References - Books, Groups & Websites (12K - PDF format) - A compilation of agile references by category, including books, groups and mailing lists, and websites.

Tour of Agile Methods - The Essence of Agile (632K - PDF format) - Presentation for the So.Cal. Agile/XP User Group January 2009 meeting covering the core agile strategies, comparing and contrasting both popular and obscure agile methods.

Scrum (1.6M - PDF format) - This overview tutorial on Scrum, presented for the San Diego XP Users' Group, covers the key Scrum principles, roles and process structure.

Management for the Agile Age - Stewardship & Partnership for Agile Teams (274K - PDF format) - Presentation for the Agile 2010 Conference on Stewardship, an approach to management that embodies agile values and principles. The session offers specific recommendations for redefining the boss-worker relationship and evolving our organizational structures.

Globalizing Agile Development (138K - PDF format) - Presentation for the SoftServe Innovations 2009 Conference on the challenges of using agile in distributed organizations with offshoring and outsourcing. Includes 5 key recommendations to mitigate the risks and achieve success with globalized agile.

Lean is More—How Lean Methods Can Benefit Your Agile Enterprise (45K - PDF format) - Our latest white paper shows you how to leverage lean principles to drive the greatest benefit from your agile transition. Learn how lean tools can help you select and optimize your agile practices.

eXtreme Adoption eXperiences of a B2B Start Up (218K - PDF format) - This chapter, published in the book Extreme Programming Perspectives, discusses an extremely successful XP implementation, and presents a suite of metrics measuring the success of adopting XP at a B2B start up.

Can We Be Sarbanes-Oxley Compliant with Scrum? (article) - So you're faced with passing SOX audits, but you want the benefits of agile processes. Don't despair, this article discusses why it should be possible to have both.

The MSF Agile Process—Is It "Agile?" (article) - The Microsoft Solutions Framework is little light on emphasizing core agile strategies. It seems all to easy to implement a non-agile version of MSF Agile. This review talks about the potential areas of concern.

Is It Time To Ditch Your Product Backlog? - Using Story Maps for Visualizing Product Backlogs (703K - PDF format) - Workshop for the Agile 2010 conference, also encored at the August AgileSoCal user group meeting, that covers the key concepts of Story Maps and how they visually present multi-faceted product backlogs. It includes a hands-on exercise building an actual non-trivial story map.

ScrumMasters Considered Harmful - Where Did We Go Wrong? (402K - PDF format) - Talk for the Agile 2009 conference on the ways the ScrumMaster role can go wrong. Covers the responsibilities of a ScrumMaster, where and how we choose them and alternates to the ScrumMaster role.

Are We There Yet? - An Agile Planning Workshop (618K - PDF format) - A workshop session for the So.Cal. Agile/XP User Group July 2009 meeting on planning, estimating and tracking in agile projects. Includes a lot on why adaptive planning works and helps demystify story point estimating.

ScrumMaster Anti-Patterns - Where Does It Go Wrong? (259K - PDF format) - Presentation for the Orange County APLN Chapter April 2009 meeting that talks about ways we can mis-implement the ScrumMaster role, and discusses the key responsibilities a ScrumMaster (or team) needs to cover.

Missing the Point of the Daily Stand-Up? (article) - Too many teams fail to realize the key potential benefits of a Daily Stand-Up. This article discusses what we should be looking for out of this key practice.

Are We There Yet? (article) - Teams often ask if their agile transition is going well. This article discusses what we need to provide an effective answer to that question.

Agile Planning, Tracking and Project Management Bootcamp (454K - PDF format) - 2004 XP/Agile Universe tutorial on applying agility to project management activities. Also presented at the August 28, 2004 XP So. Cal. Users' Group meeting.

Refactoring the Development Process: Experiences with the Incremental Adoption of Agile Practices (162K - PDF format) - Paper published at the 2004 Agile Development Conference that discusses successes using an incremental adoption strategy based on metric- and retrospection-driven feedback. Similar to refactoring practices for design and code, this strategy identifies "process smells," and targets the worst of them with specific agile practices drawn from several popular agile processes.

Can RUP Be Agile? Can RUP Be Extreme? (489K - PDF format) - RUP is the process agilists love to hate, but is this contempt deserved? This presentation exploring RUP and agility was presented January 20, 2005 at the Orange County Rational Users' Group.

Current Reality Trees (340K - PDF format) - A short tutorial given at the AgileSoCal User Group July 2013 meeting on Current Reality Trees, a tool to help teams with continuous improvement. CRTs are a structured thinking tool from Theory of Constraints for analyzing and finding the root causes of issues.

A Day in the Life of an Agile Tester (258K - PDF format) - A talk given at the March 2010 So Cal Quality Assurance Association meeting that walks through the involvement a tester/QA expert has in the activities of an agile team. You may be surprised at all they do!

Let Me Tell You What I Really Want - A User Story Writing Workshop (338K - PDF format) - A workshop session for the So.Cal. Agile/XP User Group March 2009 meeting on writing effective user stories.

Bringing QA Into the Agile Process (214K - PDF format) - Presentation for the Orange County SCQAA Chapter February 2009 meeting that talks about the strategies and issues when we fully integrate QA and testing into our agile process.

Agile Product Owner and Customer Boot Camp (276K - PDF format) - Agile 2005 Conference tutorial on applying agility to the range of product management activities, including specific practices for product owners and customers.

Emergent Database Design: Liberating Database Development with Agile Practices (162K - PDF format) - Paper published at the 2004 Agile Development Conference that discusses our experiences adopting and utilizing an incremental, emergent strategy towards the design and implementation of an enterprise database. We discuss how the principles and practices of test-driven development, YAGNI, refactoring and continuous integration were applied to the database side of the project.

Experiences Integrating Sophisticated User Experience Design Practices into Agile Processes (454K - PDF format) - (159K - PDF format) - Paper published at the Agile 2005 Conference that discusses coaching experiences integrating sophisticated Ux practices into the agile process initiatives of several organizations. This paper discusses a range of issues, from finding places for the major Ux activities from research to visual design, to modular UI design techniques, to organizational and team culture issues.

Does XP Give a Low Priority to Architecture? (article) - Are you concerned that agile prcesses shortchange architecture? I would argue that XP, in fact, places a continuous emphasis and priority on architecture.

Benefits of Pair Programming (article) - Pair programming is a practice many seem to avoid. Consider these potential benefits of pair programming before deciding not to adopt it.

Sprint Burndown Spreadsheet & Chart – The spreadsheet includes task status and color-coded task types to help visualize resource requirements for a sprint. The chart plots the burndown line as well as the target-track line adjusting for weekends and other non-working days.

Release Burndown Spreadsheet & Chart – Charts both the burndown line and the target-track line. See the "Instructions" tab for information about sprint-by-sprint updates.

Kano Analysis Spreadsheet – Use for verifying the "customer value" associated with stories to help improve backlog prioritization.

Risk Analysis Spreadsheet – Simple tool for calculating risk ranking based on probability and severity. This is especially helpful for prioritization of maintenance issues (bug fixes).

Release Calculator Spreadsheet – An advanced tool used for early stages of release planning to visualize sprint content; it is also used to capture and quantify "uncertainty" and systematically calculate the "schedule buffer" for a release plan.

Cost-of-Delivered-Value Spreadsheet & Chart – An advanced tool used for analysis and forecasting of the delivery of business value, it can also be used for tracking delivered business value.

Document Templates Archive – Zip file archive of document templates including:

Completeness Criteria Checklists – A template for defining the criteria for verifying "doneness" of tasks, stories, sprints, and releases. This is a starting point that should be customized by teams to meet specific needs.

Release Conditions-of-Satisfaction Template – A tool for keeping the business and the development sides aligned with a consistent vision and understanding. This is intended to be a living document that communicates important changes in a release plan as a project progresses.

End-of-Sprint Summary Report Template – Can also be used to evaluate how well a team executes sprint reviews.

Parametric Estimating Checklist – Use this checklist to improve estimates of story size/complexity, but can also be used for task breakdown and task estimating.

Also in this archive: Team Ground Rules Example, Agenda Template, Action Items Template