Doing Agile Right

Transformation Without Chaos

By: Darrell K. Rigby, Sarah Elk, Steven H. Berez

Narrated by: Steve Menasche

For decades business leaders have been painfully aware of the huge chasm between their aspiration for a nimble, flexible enterprise and the reality of silos, sluggishness, and frustrated innovation. Today, agile is being hailed as the essential bridge across that chasm. Agile, say its enthusiasts, can transform your company, catapulting you to the head of the pack.

Not so fast. In this clear-eyed and indispensable audiobook, Sarah Elk and Steve Berez provide a much-needed reality check. They dispel the myths and misconceptions that have accompanied agile's growth - the idea that it can reshape your organization all at once, for instance, or that it should be used in every function and for all types of work. They affirm and illustrate that agile teams can indeed transform the work environment, make people's jobs more rewarding, and turbocharge innovation - but only if the method is fully understood and implemented the right way.

Agile, done well, frees and facilitates vigorous innovation without sacrificing the efficiency and reliability essential to traditional operations. The authors break down how agile really works, show what not to do, and explain the crucial importance of scaling agile properly in order to get its full benefit. They then lay out a road map for leading the transition to a truly agile enterprise.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2020 Bain and Company, Inc. (P)2020 Gildan Media

An informative summary of using agile in organizations

A helpful read/listen for getting an overview of how to implement agile in small and larger teams, including some potential pitfalls and how to avoid them.

Thank you! Treasure trove

Well written, easily to follow with many examples, appreciate these agile insights from thousands of implementations

A must read when considering Agile transformation

A pragmatic take on Agile in greater business adoption and scale. Much of Agile material is fundamentalistic in nature, this was refreshingly different. It does not give you the right theoretical answers but provide guidelines to help you make more informed decision specifically to your context. For every complex problem there is a simple answer that is wrong. This book does not provide simple answers only simple and profound insights.

Good reference

Listening to the book I found some of the information helpful yet it would have been better to read the book and be able to write down some of the details for use later. I found myself going back through certain sections a few times to write them down.
If you want a point of reference then this is good as audible, but if you want to use as a handy manual buy it in a different format

Outstanding framework for building agile mindset

I have been researching how to scale agile at my organization, and have been most worried with how to build an agile mindset among the leadership team. This book was on point in that regard. I would not use this as a primer for a specific agile discipline (like scrum)—that’s not the point.