top 6 Agile books & 5 Best software Architecture books you must read

Below listed books are highly recommended by readers and project managers working on Agile Development projects as they help get a 360 degree view of the techniques, tools and procedures used in Agile Development. To know some of the best practices in Agile Development, you must read these books whose synopsis is given below:



1.Agile Project Management with Scrum
(By: Ken Schwaber ) The book provides a clear explanation about Scrum, starting from the basic tools and methodologies and it helps to provide accurate methods to fulfill customer requirements and for the translation of requirements into the software functions. The information is backed by a number of examples, case studies of real life projects about how to implement the information. The book also provides tips to solve a number of situational problems of Scrum implementation. The project management approach helps to reduce the overall time needed for implementation of Agile projects, to meet customer requirements satisfactorily and to reduce the overall error rate.

2.Agile Estimating and Planning
(By: Mike Cohn ) The book provides pragmatic approach to explain Agile Development, bringing the multiple planning approaches at several levels for measuring the software feature implementation, completion and acceptance. The book corrects a number of misunderstood attributes of Agile Development and explains the drawbacks of task based prediction models such as Gantt Charts, Work Breakdown Structures and PERT charts. The book provides general information but does not explain in-deep information. Part I explains the set-ups, Part II the details of estimating size, techniques and tools while Part III discusses value add planning. The book offers information about financial project analysis. Additionally, the first three parts of the book explain the concept of time, motivation, monitoring and communication.

3.User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development
(By: Mike Cohn ) Every chapter contains a set of questions which are answered in the stories given and the explanation is highly sensible and carefully explained. The techniques are easy to apply and provide great value to the reader. The chapters explain the ways to handle requirements, qualitative aspects, performance and many elicit ways to monitor the progress of Agile projects. The writer explains cases, techniques and scenarios to find difference between stories. What’s more, the ideas in the book can be applied directly for productive use.

4.The Art of Agile Development
(By: James Shore ) There are 37 Agile Development practices explained in the book which are categorized mainly in five - thinking, releasing, collaboration, planning and development. Examples are given related to ubiquitous language, energized work, vision and architecture; and some of the practices and concepts have been repeated across the book. Each article in the book explains a practice or a component of Agile Development. Thus, the book provides practical value to businesses, customers, testers, analysts and developers.

5.Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products
(By: Jim Highsmith ) The book provides an overview on Agile Project Management and it also compares the Agile Development methodologies to traditional methods of Development. It explains the six principles of Agile Project Management by keeping the customer at the centre. It is based on dialogue between two project managers - one in Agile Development and other in the traditional management. The book provides a complete guidance for managing the Development of new products and explains concepts such as technical debt, exploration factors, anticipation, feasible deployment and opportunities refactoring.

6.Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum
(By: Mike Cohn ) It provides an insight into Agile Development and compares some of the real ideas with stories, also offers examples of Agile Development which will appeal to a number of readers. Moreover, it provides tips to adopt new improved Agile Development procedures. The book is valuable for architects, programmers, testers, project managers and everyone who wants to integrate improved methods for developing software. The book is backed by a number of real world practices and has a great layout which ensures ideas and solutions are easy to understand, thus enabling successful adoption of Agile methods.

In the 90s, Agile Development methodologies became popular which was mainly based on iterative Development where the solutions evolved through the process of collaboration between the cross functional teams. There are many different types of Agile Development methodologies. The four main phases of traditional software Development are designing architecture, testing, delivery and feedback. Today, Agile Development is mostly seen as the process which is suitable in certain environment types which involves many small teams.


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Are you looking for the best software architecture books? Take a look at the following books which I found really valuable in understanding and effectively applying software architecture principles in real life. I would recommend these books as a must read for any software architect or developer regardless of language or background. (In addition to the 5 Best Design Pattern Books)


1.Software Systems Architecture: Working With Stakeholders Using Viewpoints and Perspectives (By: Nick Rozanski,E. Woods)
This book can be a good companion and reference for a beginner through intermediate level. It gives an excellent overview of what a system architect has to go through day in and day out to achieve success. The book contains a wealth of advice on what to pay and not pay attention to in any particular stage of the architectural development. The authors clearly speak from personal experience.
Even if you are not an architect it is a great book to buy so you understand what to expect out of one. More details about this book can be found at - http://www.viewpoints-and-perspectives.info/


2.Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices(By: Robert C. Martin)
This book has dozens of practical but concise examples illustrating everything from relatively simple object-oriented design concepts such as Meyer's Open/Closed Principle to subtle and complex issues with class and package dependencies.
The patterns discussion in this book is down-to-earth and easily understood. Robert does a wonderful job of explaining each design pattern, demonstrating their use through code, and placing them within the context of his design principles. The examples are numerous and, with a few exceptions, well written. I would also recommend this book to an Object Oriented Design newbie/student.


3.Working Effectively with Legacy Code (By: Michael Feathers)
This book does an excellent job of articulating the problems and scenarios, using clear examples from C, C++, Java, and C#. Many of the code examples look a lot like real examples we come across all the time (they don't appear to be fabricated).
The author defines "legacy code" as "code without tests." It doesn't matter whether the code was written last week or ten years ago. There is more emphasis on old code that nobody understands, mainly because it is messier and harder to work with. Working with legacy code isn't fun, but this book helps make it as painless as possible.


4.
Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions(By: Luke Hohmann)
This book delivers on its promise to discuss the larger business realities of creating software products. If you're a software architect, or dream of being one, this is a must read book.
The book is nicely segmented into logical chapters, making it an excellent reference. Although it covers classic architecture issues such as portability, usability, performance, layering, API design, and security, the truly valuable material is on the business and product management side of the fence, which often get ignored, or left till late in the process.


5.
Enterprise Integration Patterns: Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutions
(By: Gregor Hohpe, Bobby Woolf)
The book is organized into 65 patterns. Each pattern shows one typical problem in integrating applications, and how it is solved. Each pattern gives enough implementation details so it is clear how it would work, and an example or two so it is clear how it works in practice.
This book also contains in-depth coverage on software architecture using asynchronous communication. It's worth reading and re-reading if you're working with systems integration projects or writing integration software yourself.