Book Structure and Contents

Structure of the Book

Theory and practice are put together into something that is hopefully reasonably entertaining and interesting to read.

• The main body of the book is divided into ten sections, each concerned with a particular aspect of software development as practiced by Agile teams
• Sections are ordered into a particular sequence that helps build up a team’s proficiency in a step-by-step manner
• Each section is largely self-contained so you can read them in any order that makes sense to you
• There is a comprehensive Glossary, bibliography and index as well as a number of useful appendices to help your team start working in an Agile way

Structure of a Section

• Each section starts with a short story and ends with a review describing how the OSPACS team put the ideas into practice, their impressions about the material, and its relationship to Extreme Programming values
• Within most chapters are exercises that guide you through the use of VSTS and other tools needed to implement an Agile development process
• You will also find sidebars inside various chapters that summarize particular XP relevant to what is being discussed

The Subplot: Fixing a Broken Process

The book’s Introduction contains a story about a fictional software team called OSPACS that has a broken process:

• the team always delivers late and has gone three times over budget
• it has a high staff turnover
• they are surprised to discover that its software is full of bugs

The rest of the book is about how the team fixed these problems, but along the way we aim to give you insight into the use of VSTS and the meaning of better software development for a small Agile team.