Lean-Agile Bibliography

Lean-Agile Partners recommends the following books as good places to learn about lean and agile practices that are consistent with the way we teach them.

Title	Author	Comments	Audience
Implementing Lean Software Development	Mary and Tom Poppendieck	Shows how lean and agile combine to radically increase productivity of knowledge work.	IT management, senior managers, and anyone new to agile software practices.
Lean Software Development	Mary and Tom Poppendieck	First book linking Lean thinking with software development. If you read nothing else, read this.	IT management, senior managers, and anyone new to agile software practices.
Agile Project Management with Scrum	Ken Schwaber	A series of case studies that helps to see how to apply these ideas to real situations.	Project managers, line managers, and agile team members.
User Stories Applied	Mike Cohn	Good explanation of technique for writing agile stories (requirements are called "stories").	Anyone who needs to create user stories (for example, Product Owners).
Agile Estimating and Planning	Mike Cohn	Valuable for project managers, product owners, and agile teams.	Product Owners, project managers, and stakeholders.
Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know About How Artists Work	Rob Austin and Lee Devin	Agile teams have more in common with a symphony orchestra or a theatre company than with civil engineering, or other engineering fields. This book explores creativity bounded by deadlines and group dynamics. Fascinating!	Agile teams, and anyone who needs to understand them.
Lean Thinking	Womack and Jones	Fundamentals of the Lean ideas which underlie all the agile software practices.	Managers, and agile coaches.
The Elegant Solution: Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation	Matthew E. May	New book on Lean concepts, written in a very accessible, engaging way. The short chapters make good material for discussion groups.	Managers, and agile coaches.
Testing Extreme Programming [ISBN 0-321-11355-1]	Lisa Crispin and Tip House	Good, practical advice for agile test practices, even for situations where the developers are not using agile methods.	Testers, and developers.
Facilitators Guide to Participatory Decision-Making [ISBN 0-86571-347-2]	Sam Kaner	Very good basic material for facilitating decision making meetings and retrospectives.	Agile coaches, and anyone who needs to lead others.
Agile Retrospectives	Esther Derby and Diana Larsen	All agile teams need retrospectives,and this is essential reading for that.	Agile coaches, and agile team members.
The Art of Agile Development	James Shore and Shane Warden	Speaks to all the roles: test, development, and management. Covers a wide variety of techniques for every aspect of agile development. Highly recommended.	Agile teams, and anyone who needs to understand them.
Domain-Driven Design	Eric Evans	Detailed discussion of agile design concepts, patterns, and when to use them.	Software architects and designers.
Working Effectively with Legacy Code	Michael Feathers	Thorough discussion of test-driven development in the most difficult circumstances.	Agile software developers.
A Practical Guide to eXtreme Programming	David Astels, Granville Miller, Miroslav Novak	Good description of all the agile technical practices (for example, continuous integration, automated builds, TDD, etc.).	Agile software developers, and technical support people.
Managing the Design Factory [ISBN 0-684-83991-1]	Donald G. Reinertsen	Good explanation of Lean fundamentals as applied to knowledge work.	Managers.
Radical Project Management	Rob Thomsett	Useful view of project management, although it does not use the agile terminology that our teams use. Still worthwhile.	Project managers, and Product Owners.
Crystal Clear	Alistair Cockburn	Another agile methodology worth understanding— good ideas come from many places.	Agile team members, and their managers.