Agile in a Flash

Card-carrying Agile Author

Card-carrying agile author and programmer, Tim Ottinger, smugly shows his plastic-wrapped Agile In A Flash deck at home. Tim is the originator of the Agile In A Flash concept, and co-author of the deck with Jeff Langr (without whom this project would have died on the vine). Feeling smug? You betcha.

Card-carrying software journeyman

Card-carrying software journeyman, Corey Haines, shows off his deck and a broad smile at a Chicago Starbucks outlet.

Getting the Word Out

By now, many of our readers (perhaps all) have recieved copies of the Agile In A Flash. The feedback we have received has been very positive and we are very encouraged. I understand that a few decks even traveled to the Agile Manifesto event in Salt Lake City.

Our goal is to get this tool into the hands of coaches, trainers, managers, product owners, and development teams all over the world. Since the book has only been out for less than one month, we don't have a lot of information about our sales, but we know from twitter that we are selling on several continents and that people are finding value in the books.

Our goal is to get the cards in the hands of the people who are really doing the work: your project team and its neighbors in the business where you work. If you are interested in helping promote the Agile In A Flash project:

Let your employers know that you are getting value from the deck, and maybe ask to outfit the whole team!
If you are a member of a user group or software interest group of any kind, talk to us about promotional give-aways. We might hook you up with discount coupons or maybe even a deck or two.
On Feb 22, Java Ranch is holding a promotional event for us. Join us!
A review at your favorite on-line book retailer will encourage others to try Agile In A Flash.
Keep us in your tweets and status updates.
Send us a "Card Carrying" picture. We'll post them here. Maybe someone will be inspired!
Send us your great promotional ideas. We're all ears.
This blog could use a Digg or Reddit or HackerNews vote.
Vote us up at CodeBix

Anniversary

Agile In A Flash is published in the 10th anniversary year of the Agile Manifesto. It hit the shelf only weeks before the reunion gathering in Salt Lake City. We thank the original authors and signatories for providing us with a good foundation for our practice, and we look forward to whatever lies ahead.

Join the celebration by popping over to the Tenth Anniversary site. Read the articles, check out the photos, and join the dialog.

Two Agile Works that Work Great Together

Have you seen The Agile Samurai yet? We're currently reading it, and really enjoying it. You may see some new Samurai-inspired cards on this site in coming weeks. Jonathan Rasmusson has had kind things to say about Agile In A Flash as well.

Pragmatic programmers have recognized the value of these two works together, and offer a special deal on the physical works tucked away in their latest podcast announcement:

Don’t forget our special discount on our latest agile-themed titles. Save 35% on the paperbacks if you purchase both Agile in a Flash and The Agile Samurai. Just put both paperback books in your cart, and the 35% discount will be automatically applied. While supplies last. Does not apply to prior purchases, or to ebooks; do not read while operating heavy machinery, pages may be slippery when wet.

The Big Four

There are many concerns for software design and architecture, including functionality, scaling, performance, extensibility, backward compatibility, platform compatibility, future-proofing, the list goes on and on. However, for a system to continue to be workable (maintainable, readable, extensible, correctable) there are primarily these four large concerns.

Software developers have pondered the question of "design rot" as long as there has been software, and have realized that the internal structure of a software system is vitally important to its continued success, just as external factors are critical to user acceptance.

Object-oriented design has provided tools for managing continued workability, but many developers today have not received a well-grounded education in software structure. They are instead pushed to make software that lacks internal structure, but works and is appealing in concept or user interface.

We are presenting a series of articles via the Pragmatic Bookshelf magazine, which we hope will fill in the gaps:

Promo Video Contest

Tim and I aren't videographers (although I do like his video, see the previous post in this blog). Nor are we in real, day-to-day teams right now (I'm doing on-customer-site consulting, tough to get permissions and such). So we're looking for someone to provide us with a cool video that shows your team's use of Agile in a Flash, and helps promote the book.

We're offering as a prize a ten-pack of cards ($110 at PragProg) for the video we choose as the best. In return, you'd grant us rights and permissions to use the video and whoevers' likenesses for promotional use.

Please email me (jeff at langrsoft.com) if you have any further questions about the contest.

Contest deadline: February 28, 2011

Legal stuff: This is all arbitrary, and Tim and I reserve all rights, including the right to not choose a video if none suits our promotional needs.

The Deal

Agile In A Flash is not a replacement for coaching, training, consulting, and those wonderful books that my colleagues have written. Agile in a Flash is a great way to get started, and a great tool for coaches, trainers, and consultants to use in teaching Agile software development to their clients and colleagues.

This is our first released video about the cards. Stay tuned.

Released.

It's here! After a few years of writing, a lot of editing, a bit of promotion, and a whole lot of work, Pragmatic Programmers has released Agile In A Flash.

To our knowledge there is not another product like this one anywhere in the world, on any topic. We've worked hard to make something useful and unique for our Agile community. We have spent a lot of time on format and form factor, phrasing, clarifying points when possible, and weeding out the cards that seemed less useful. As a result of our extreme culling and revisits, you will find powerful advice in a surprisingly small package.

Pragmatic Programmers helped us to make it affordable for teams and companies alike, and individual copies are not out of "impulse purchase" range. This was a departure from their normal publishing activities, but they believed in it and did a lot of legwork to make it possible. They've been supportive and amazing, and I hope you will reward them with your custom.

Thank you for your comments, reviews, tweets and retweets. Today the project is entirely "real" and we appreciate all our readers have done (and may continue to do) to make this crazy little idea work.

New PragProg article: Code Coupling

Our latest in our series of "big ideas in software" is now available and appearing in the PragPub January 2011 issue. This is the second article out of four, each covering one of cohesion, coupling, abstraction, and volatility. In this article on coupling, we talk about the impacts of too many dependencies in your software, and what you can do to prevent it.

In addition to the HTML version, you also find PDF, epub, and mobi versions of the article here.

Agile in a Flash is slated for publication on January 20! You can advance-order now from Amazon; you'll also soon be able to order in bulk, at a discount, from PragProg directly (and this is the kind of thing for which you'll want a separate copy for everyone on your team).

Meanwhile, Tim and I are banging out the next article, on abstraction, in the series. If you have any advance thoughts on what you'd like to see covered, drop a comment here or send us a line.

Thanks for reading!