Agile ALM and Fragile Agile -update-

As already written, I've completed my manuscript of Agile ALM end of March. Beside my writing and editing, I've also organized a lot of other people who edited, reviewed and contributed content. Now we are in a phase, where we "bring the book to production" (according to the publisher). In the past, I've already incorporated feedback from Manning's reviewers. Because Manning did not give me a list of any unclear phrasings or similar, I've hired a professional editing service for supporting me, additionally. This service gave me many very good hints. Beginning of last week, Manning put someone on the project to further "polish" the completed manuscript. Unfortunately, I still did not get an official timeline from the publisher yet, when this polishing is supposed to be completed, and when the book will be in production, finally. "The polisher" just goes through each chapter at the moment. Because you know Manning you probably also know that they run an early access program named MEAP. My book is still not available there yet, and I have no idea, when it will be available through MEAP, finally. You may remember that I've announced the book for MEAP already September 2009. I have no influence on that, actually. I'm very sorry about that.

With my German book Fragile Agile, progress is much more visible and transparent. We finished the "bulk text writing", and do editing now. Then, Hanser's editor will give us concrete feedback what sections we should further optimize. But this is something that is scheduled for the near future, and did not start yet. Meanwhile, my book (that I co-author) is listed on the publisher's web site: Fragile Agile@Hanser. The book is scheduled to be available September, 2nd. It will cost EURO 24,90. I think, it should be possible already to buy the book via Hanser. The public web site also contains the official book description. It was created by our lovely editor. She is working in an extremely professional way. It is really a pleasure to write with Hanser. I've attached the book description here: (sorry, German book, German summary)

Gehören Sie auch zu denen, die sich schon in einem agilen Projekt quälen mussten und enttäuscht waren, dass die Agilität nicht funktioniert hat? Und das, obwohl man doch immer wieder hört, mit agilen Methoden oder Vorgehensweisen sei der Erfolg quasi garantiert.
Woran liegt es, dass viele agile Projekte nicht erfolgreich sind? Der Agilen Softwareentwicklung liegen vier Wertepaare und zwölf Prinzipien zugrunde, die verinnerlichen sollte, wer Projekterfolg haben will. Aber wie setzt man zum Beispiel dieses Prinzip um: "Einfachheit - die Kunst der Maximierung der Arbeit, die nicht getan wird - ist wesentlich."
In diesem Buch zeigen Pavlo Baron und Michael Hüttermann mit Witz und Esprit, welche Fallstricke die Agilen Werte und Prinzipien bereithalten und wie sie in vielen Projekten falsch interpretiert werden. Natürlich zeigen sie auch, wie man es besser machen kann, wie man Agilität richtig versteht und im Projekt lebt. Sie greifen dabei auf ihre Erfahrungen aus zahlreichen Projekten zurück und erzählen eine Reihe von lehrreichen Anekdoten, die Sie zum Schmunzeln bringen werden.

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