Agile Management for Software Engineering: Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results

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Abraham Lincoln once asked something like, "If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?" The answer is four. "Just because you call a tail a leg doesn't make it so." Just because you want to call some development practice "Agile" doesn't make it so. In this book, David Anderson makes a case for calling Theory of Constraints the underlying definition of Agile software development practices. The principle tie is that a key measure in the Theory of Constraints is called Throughput; the amount of value delivered to the customer. Agile methods pride themselves as delivering value to the customer quickly. Based on the Theory of Constraints definition, the Feature Driven Development (FDD) method, Anderson's personal expertise, turns out to be the most Agile of all.In making the case for the Theory of Constraints based approach, Anderson has given us a lot of formulas and metrics for looking at software projects. This is the most thorough treatment of the subject I have seen yet. I wasn't fully satisfied with the metrics as I felt the book didn't deal with the biggest problem in metrics, the problem of characterizing the measure. To do good metrics, you have to be very clear on what you are measuring, the characterization problem. Without that, all the formulas, graphs, and trends are pretty much useless. Most of the book dealt with the problem by saying, "If you could measure `X', then..." I got really tired of all the Ifs in the book.In fact, I am not sure I should like this book or not. I found myself half of the time saying to myself, "Hmm, that is a interesting idea," and the other half saying, "I don't think so." Perhaps it was all the Ifs, perhaps it was the repetition. I am glad to say at the end of the book Anderson does appear to have the intelligence to note that one size does not fit all and does a nice job of suggesting where the best choices in software development approaches might be.So, who should read this book? Well, if you like Donald Reinertsen's and Eliyahu Goldratt's work and live in the software world, this book is for you. If you have to teach Agile seminars to software professionals (like me), then this should be on your reading list as well. If you are general software project manager or developer who is looking to improve the way you do software development, then I would probably pass on this book. Not that the ideas are all wrong but you probably will get lost along the way. If...

My professor required this book for my software project planning course. Being from a science background, I've never been very interested in business-related subject matter. However, in this book, Anderson provides simple models and strategies that seem simple and easy to apply. I've even had a somewhat hostile view of management in the past. This book has made me re-evaluate my attitude. I can now see that management does have an important role in a healthy organization.

This is the hardest - and possibly best - Agile software book I have read so far. It's hard because it digs deeper into the cause and effect at play within agile environments and because it deals with the "bigger" financial aspects of lean. It's a well written, comprensive text.

I don't mind buying books from Amazon, but the only thing about Amazon is they charge you shipping charges, why can't they just ship all the books at one time instead if they are in stock! I know it is only a estimate but we put the estimate on the purchase orders, and when we receive each item, there is a charge for each shipment! When we have to reconcile the orders, the amount is different then what is on the purchase order. So we have to do an amendment to either increase or decrease the order!Also if the books are instock at the time I order, why do they send messages saying "Your order is delayed and will be shipped at a later date, what is up with that if they are in stock! Ordering from Amazon is a pain!

This text book treats the subject of agile software management well. The examples and explanations are quite comprehensive.

Anderson takes agile development, which is a loose-leaf collection of unintegrated practices, and transforms it into a serious discipline with a firm foundation. He accomplishes this by borrowing concepts from manufacturing (like theory of constraints) and applying them to software development. Such a book could only be written by someone thoroughly familiar with both software development and manufacturing; fortunately the author seems quite knowledgeable about both.In all, this book is serious, contentful, and even profound at times. It is by far the best book I've read on the topic in quite a long while.

The accounting-based framework for assessing the value contributions of a team seem like an effective way of measuring Agile products and whether or not they're good for the company.Unfortunately, the book was full of distracting grammar and even *spelling* errors. It also had a serious tendency to use a lot of acronyms / variables for concepts, but didn't bother to even quickly re-expand the name when they hadn't been used for a couple of chapters and jumped back up again. Plodding from chapter to chapter, it builds up formulae with just enough description to bury you in the details of the relationships between the variables, without actually conveying examples of what the variables represent in real life projects.For being as formula-oriented as this book was, I would've expected to see a detailed example of a project, assessment of it as it went along, and the calculations of the value being delivered by the project. There were a few hypothetical examples, but nothing that actually sounded like a real evaluation of a project as it progressed.Finally, they might as well have cut out SCRUM and XP. I would've been much happier if this book had just been an application of TOC (Theory of Constraints) to FDD (Feature-Driven Development) and if it had concentrated more on real examples of the two in practice, rather than trying to extract some theory and try to convey how one might apply it to other methodologies.I just couldn't say that, having read all of it, I could correctly measure what they state, compute the numbers the the way they suggest, and then have any confidence in any decisions I made based on those numbers.

This book contains very helpful ideas and examples about fostering successful agile management as well as a corresponding adaptive environment so that the individuals, teams and teams of teams can focus on providing customer & stakeholder value in combination with a healthy & happy organization.The Theory of Constraints is well explained & applied to the flow of value, minimize risks and avoid waste.The strong relation and corresponding explanations to the Agile Manifesto make this book even more valueable for me as an Agile Coach.