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A short book review of: "Joy of Agility" by Joshua Kerievsky

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laurent brusa
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8 min read

Joy of Agility by Joshua Kerievsky

We all face challenges. Regardless of our profession, we struggle to find our way through tough conditions, unexpected events disrupt us, new obstacles impede our progress, and the status quo keeps pulling us back. [...] What could help us overcome such challenges? Being agile.
Agility helps us solve problems with quick, easy grace.

This book has been inspiring during my travels because much of what it advocates applies to my daily life as well. Planning a trip to Latin America is a huge undertaking and involves many choices. Being agile helps here too!

It is divided into small chapters which are easy to read and each one of them contains an inspiring story. Many of them resonated with me long after I read them. For instance, he talks about the importance of always looking for the best option.

Something I often thought about:

is an opportunity to be agile by considering several approaches to solving a problem and discovering a suitable solution that is both efficient and effective. Are you regularly considering your options? To be more agile, consider at least three options.
We should make sure to get at least three valid options to choose from before taking a decision. This is obvious and seems trivial, but in the hurry of daily life, we often go for the easier way, without considering enough alternatives.

This makes me think about the other book I read: "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman. We humans are not good statisticians, we often are not good at estimating and this can affect our decision-making process.

The book has 6 "mantras" that should help guide our decisions and actions:

  • Be Quick—But Don’t Hurry

  • Be Balanced and Graceful

  • Be Poised to Adapt

  • Start Minimal and Evolve

  • Drive Out Fear

  • Be Readily Resourceful

It is quite an inspiring read.

There are many great quotes in the book. Like the need to break away from stale traditions and techniques:

Traditions are hard to break. Many people who learned how to perform a skill years or decades ago use the same technique when teaching others. They are stuck in a traditional mindset, unaware of new, innovative approaches that help us establish balance sooner; drive out fear more effectively; and make it quicker, easier, and more graceful to learn a new skill. Don’t just blindly follow long-established approaches when learning a new skill. Explore alternatives that accelerate learning.

About code legacy, he says:

“Take the easy way, it gets harder; take the hard way, it gets easier.”

Technical debt is often caused by taking the easier path!

It is not a traditional Agile manual. It is more of a book to read once, and then read again. Maybe best kept on the nightstand for the occasional browsing too!

This is a book for everybody. Heavily recommended :)

tags: Design Patterns, Extreme Programming (XP), Agile, stories, inspiration

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