The (New) Art of Agile Development, with James Shore

Have you, your team, and your organization mastered the art of agile development?

In 2007, James Shore & Shane Warden published "The Art of Agile Development". In the preface of their book, they wrote that "agile development, like any approach to team-based software development, is a fundamentally human art, one subject to the vagaries of individuals and their interactions." They wrote the book because they wanted to help others master the art of agile development.

A lot has happened since that book was written. This year, a brand new version was released. In this thorough update, James provides no-nonsense advice on Agile adoption, planning, development, delivery, and management taken from over two decades of Agile experiences. He brings the latest ideas from Extreme Programming, Scrum, Lean, DevOps, and more into a cohesive whole. And while the first edition (13 years ago) was targeted for individuals, teams, and companies who may have heard about agile (but weren't really using any of it yet), this second edition is designed for the many of us who have worked in an environment that's called itself agile, and how we can make it actually work.

At this session, James will share the first chapter of the book, and we'll have an opportunity to discuss what 'Agile' means to us, how that might align with our organizations, and what it looks like at it's best.

About James

James Shore teaches, writes, and consults on Agile software development. He is co-author of the classic Agile how-to guide, The Art of Agile Development. He is also co-creator of the Agile Fluency® Model, a highly-regarded guide for Agile adoption, and he’s a recipient of the Agile Alliance’s Gordon Pask Award for Contributions to Agile Practice.

James believes that great software development teams consistently deliver market success, technical success, and personal success for team members and their organizations. He was an early adopter of Agile development. He first encountered Agile, in the form of Extreme Programming (XP), while working as a team lead in 1999. James said, “That first Agile project was the best project I’d ever been on. After that, I didn’t want to work any other way. But nobody had heard of Agile or XP back then, so to keep doing what I loved, I had to become a consultant and teach them.”

James was one of the first ten people to sign the Agile Manifesto when it was released to the public in 2001. In 2005, he was an inaugural recipient of the Agile Alliance’s Gordon Pask Award for Contributions to Agile Practice. The first edition of his book, The Art of Agile Development, was released in 2007, and became a much-loved classic. James went on to create other influential works, such as the Agile Fluency Model with Diana Larsen, and is a popular speaker at events around the world.

James lives in Portland, Oregon, USA, with his wife and two children.