The Hands-On Guide to Effective Collaboration in Agile Projects

To succeed, an agile project demands outstanding collaboration among all its stakeholders. But great collaboration doesn't happen by itself; it must be carefully planned and facilitated throughout the entire project lifecycle. Collaboration Explained is the first book to bring together proven, start-to-finish techniques for ensuring effective collaboration in any agile software project.

Since the early days of the agile movement, Jean Tabaka has been studying and promoting collaboration in agile environments. Drawing on her unsurpassed experience, she offers clear guidelines and easy-to-use collaboration templates for every significant project event: from iteration and release planning, through project chartering, all the way through post-project retrospectives.

Tabaka's hands-on techniques are applicable to every leading agile methodology, from Extreme Programming and Scrum to Crystal Clear. Above all, they are practical: grounded in a powerful understanding of the technical, business, and human challenges you face as a project manager or development team member.

• Build collaborative software development cultures, leaders, and teams
• Prepare yourself to collaborate-and prepare your team
• Define clear roles for each participant in promoting collaboration
• Set your collaborative agenda
• Master tools for organizing collaboration more efficiently
• Run effective collaborative meetings-including brainstorming sessions
• Promote better small-group and pair-programming collaboration
• Get better information, and use it to make better decisions
• Use non-abusive conflict to drive positive outcomes
• Collaborate to estimate projects and schedules more accurately
• Strengthen collaboration across distributed, virtual teams
• Extend collaboration from individual projects to the entire development organization