Book review: Age of Agile
Gunnar Wrobel
Revamp Your Hiring Strategy: Embrace Proactivity and Boost Success! - JOBMATCH.ME
TL;DR
I loved the first half of the book "Age of Agile" and failed finding much value in the second half. But what I learned from the initial chapters was definitely worth recommending this book to others.
Summary
Stephen Denning summarizes the current state of agile in organizations and describes core trends in agile solutions . He structures these trends into three "laws": The law of the small team, the law of the customer and the law of the network. For each of those he details the basic reasoning behind the "law", provides references to other texts and describes real world examples. The laws are followed by several chapters on how to transform an existing organization according to those basic rules into an agile company. And the second half of the book deals with potentials traps to an agile organization that might bring the downfall of the agile mindset.
What I didn't like
The "traps" Denning highlights in the second half of the book were mainly targeting big organizations and this did not resonate with me. The tendency of describing large organizations that are on a road to agile was noticeable throughout the whole book. So it depends what your own situation is: but taking into account that I'm currently working in a startup I was unable to relate to some of the examples.
What I loved
Framing agile structures into the three "laws" mentioned above was something that felt very reasonable to me and provided a clear structure that helped me to focus and guide my own ideas on how to structure an organization. Many of the paragraphs that delighted me were collections from other resources but the composition in "Age of Agile" was exquisite. "The law of the customer" contained the highest number of sentences I needed to copy and collect into my own knowledge management tool. While originally from Peter Drucker the quote "There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer" perfectly represented what the complete chapter drove home. "The law of the network" intrigued me as well even though I admit that I still do not fully get the real world implications and need more experience. In addition it put the next book "Team of Teams" from Stanley McChrystal on my reading list. And luckily I have colleagues at JobMatchMe that enjoy discussing these topics with me and help experimenting with different techniques in order to transfer theory to the real world.
So all in all: Read this book!