Top 100 Agile Books (Edition 2011)

Top 100 Agile Books (Edition 2011):

One year ago, at the Agile 2010 conference, I came up with the idea to publish a Top 100 Agile Books. Like many of my other top 100 lists it was a great success (in terms of blog traffic).

This year I am not at the Agile 2011 conference (for various reasons, both good and bad). But nevertheless, I decided to publish a new edition of the Top 100 Agile Books, especially for my friends at Agile 2011 who are enjoying a great conference without me.

This list is based on quality (averate ratings) and quantity (number of ratings), both on Amazon.com and GoodReads.com. The age of the books also played a minor factor in the calculations. (Older books should keep acquiring new ratings, or else they drop in the list.)

Congratulations are in order for Roy Osherove, who pushed Mike Cohn away from the #1 slot, and Jonathan Rasmussen, the highest new entry this year with The Agile Samurai. Other high new entries are Specification by Example (Gojko Adzic), The Clean Coder (Bob Martin), The Elements of Scrum (Chris Sims), The Concise Executive Guide to Agile (Israel Gat) and Management 3.0 (hey, that’s me!).

Enjoy the list!

Update 12 August: I fixed an error in the calculations. The book Continuous Delivery (Jez Humble, David Farley) is now a new entry at #50.

TY	LY	Title	Author(s)	Year
1	5	The Art of Unit Testing: With Examples in .Net	Roy Osherove	2009
2	1	Agile Estimating and Planning	Mike Cohn	2005
3	3	Working Effectively with Legacy Code	Michael Feathers	2004
4	8	Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business	David J. Anderson	2010
5	9	Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum	Mike Cohn	2009
6	2	Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship	Robert C. Martin	2008
7	6	Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices	Robert C. Martin	2002
8	4	Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code	Martin Fowler, et al.	1999
9	-	The Agile Samurai: How Agile Masters Deliver Great Software	Jonathan Rasmusson	2010
10	7	The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master	Andrew Hunt, David Thomas	1999
11	11	User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development	Mike Cohn	2004
12	10	Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests	Steve Freeman, Nat Pryce	2009
13	32	The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development	Donald G. Reinertsen	2009
14	14	The Art of Agile Development	James Shore, Shane Warden	2007
15	23	Scrum and XP from the Trenches	Henrik Kniberg	2007
16	12	Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit	Mary Poppendieck, Tom Poppendieck	2003
17	13	Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software	Eric Evans	2003
18	16	Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#	Robert C. Martin, Micah Martin	2006
19	17	Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams	Lisa Crispin, Janet Gregory	2009
20	24	Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash	Mary Poppendieck, Tom Poppendieck	2006
21	18	Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World	Venkat Subramaniam, Andy Hunt	2005
22	15	Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management	Scott Berkun	2008
23	57	Beautiful Testing: Leading Professionals Reveal How They Improve Software	Adam Goucher, Tim Riley	2009
24	19	Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management	Johanna Rothman, Esther Derby	2005
25	34	Crystal Clear: A Human-Powered Methodology for Small Teams	Alistair Cockburn	2004
26	28	Agile Coaching	Rachel Davies, Liz Sedley	2009
27	20	Applied Software Project Management	Andrew Stellman, Jennifer Greene	2005
28	21	Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products (2nd Edition)	Jim Highsmith	2009
29	22	xUnit Test Patterns: Refactoring Test Code	Gerard Meszaros	2007
30	31	Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects	Johanna Rothman	2009
31	26	Writing Effective Use Cases	Alistair Cockburn	2000
32	-	Specification by Example: How Successful Teams Deliver the Right Software	Gojko Adzic	2011
33	41	Managing the Design Factory	Donald G. Reinertsen	1997
34	-	The Clean Coder	Robert C. Martin	2011
35	29	Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great	Esther Derby, Diana Larsen	2006
36	39	Agile Project Management with Scrum	Ken Schwaber	2004
37	30	Agile Adoption Patterns: A Roadmap to Organizational Succes	Amr Elssamadisy	2008
38	27	Refactoring to Patterns	Joshua Kerievsky	2004
39	40	Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change (1st+2nd Edition)	Kent Beck, Cynthia Andres	1999
40	37	The Productive Programmer	Neal Ford	2008
41	60	Agile Product Management with Scrum: Creating Products that Customers Love	Roman Pichler	2010
42	25	Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager's Guide	Craig Larman	2003
43	68	Stand Back and Deliver: Accelerating Business Agility	Pollyanna Pixton, Niel Nickolaisen, Todd Little, Kent McDonald	2009
44	-	The Elements of Scrum	Chris Sims, Hillary Louise Johnson	2011
45	-	Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders	Jurgen Appelo	2011
46	47	Test Driven Development: By Example	Kent Beck	2002
47	36	Agile Software Development with Scrum	Ken Schwaber, Mike Beedle	2001
48	-	The Concise Executive Guide to Agile	Israel Gat	2010
49	48	Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk	Paul M. Duvall, Steve Matyas, Andrew Glover	2007
50	-	Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation	Jez Humble, David Farley	2010
51	35	Requirements by Collaboration	Ellen Gottesdiener	2002
52	42	Manage It!: Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management	Johanna Rothman	2007
53	45	Scaling Lean & Agile Development: Thinking and Organizational Tools for Large-Scale Scrum	Craig Larman, Bas Vodde	2008
54	38	Organizational Patterns of Agile Software Development	James O. Coplien, Neil B. Harrison	2004
55	43	Leading Lean Software Development: Results Are not the Point	Mary Poppendieck, Tom Poppendieck	2009
56	51	Ship it! A Practical Guide to Successful Software Projects	Jared Richardson, William A. Gwaltney	2005
57	86	Kanban and Scrum - Making the Most of Both	Henrik Kniberg, Mattias Skarin	2010
58	71	Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition	Lyssa Adkins	2010
59	49	Collaboration Explained: Facilitation Skills for Software Project Leaders	Jean Tabaka	2006
60	55	Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions	Luke Hohmann	2003
61	50	Changing Software Development: Learning to Become Agile	Allan Kelly	2008
62	80	Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play	Luke Hohmann	2006
63	70	Just Enough Requirements Management: Where Software Development Meets Marketing	Alan Mark Davis	2005
64	52	Agility and Discipline Made Easy: Practices from OpenUP and RUP	Per Kroll, Bruce MacIsaac	2006
65	61	Implementation Patterns	Kent Beck	2006
66	62	Extreme Programming Installed	Ron Jeffries, Ann Anderson, Chet Hendrickson	2000
67	56	Beautiful Teams: Inspiring and Cautionary Tales from Veteran Team Leaders	Andrew Stellman, Jennifer Greene	2009
68	53	Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design	Scott W. Ambler, Pramodkumar J. Sadalage	2006
69	88	Bridging the Communication Gap: Specification by Example and Agile Acceptance Testing	Gojko Adzic	2009
70	58	Managing Agile Projects	Sanjiv Augustine	2005
71	46	Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game (2nd Edition)	Alistair Cockburn	2006
72	81	Agile Management for Software Engineering: Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results	David J. Anderson	2003
73	73	Becoming Agile: ...in an Imperfect World	Greg Smith, Ahmed Sidky	2008
74	66	Emergent Design: The Evolutionary Nature of Professional Software Development	Scott L. Bain	2008
75	75	Test Driven: TDD and Acceptance TDD for Java Developers	Lasse Koskela	2007
76	83	The Software Project Manager's Bridge to Agility	Michele Sliger, Stacia Broderick	2008
77	-	Lean-Agile Acceptance Test-Driven Development: Better Software Through Collaboration	Ken Pugh	2011
78	63	Agile Excellence for Product Managers: A Guide to Creating Winning Products with Agile Development Teams	Greg Cohen	2010
79	54	Managing Agile Projects	Kevin J. Aguanno	2005
80	69	A Tale of Two Systems: Lean and Agile Software Development for Business Leaders	Michael K. Levine	2009
81	67	Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas	Mary Lynn Manns, Linda Rising	2004
82	64	Balancing Agility and Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed	Barry Boehm, Richard Turner	2003
83	79	Patterns of Agile Practice Adoption	Amr Elssamadisy	2007
84	-	Lean Architecture: for Agile Software Development	James O. Coplien, Gertrud Bjørnvig	2010
85	59	Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility	Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver, James R. Trott	2009
86	84	Business Agility: Sustainable Prosperity in a Relentlessly Competitive World	Michael H. Hugos	2009
87	-	Just Enough Software Architecture: A Risk-Driven Approach	George H. Fairbanks	2010
88	78	Principles of Software Development Leadership: Applying Project Management Principles to Agile Software Development	Ken Whitaker	2009
89	77	A Practical Guide to Distributed Scrum	Elizabeth Woodward, Steffan Surdek, Matthew Ganis	2010
90	76	The Business Value of Agile Software Methods: Maximizing Roi With Just-in-time Processes and Documentation	David F. Rico, Hasan H. Sayani, Saya Sone	2009
91	-	Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life	Jim Benson, Tonianne DeMaria Barry	2011
92	74	Agile Game Development with Scrum	Clinton Keith	2010
93	-	Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise	Dean Leffingwell	2010
94	85	The Enterprise Unified Process: Extending the Rational Unified Process	Scott W. Ambler, John Nalbone, Michael J. Vizdos	2005
95	-	Managing Software Debt: Building for Inevitable Change	Chris Sterling	2010
96	82	Project Management the Agile Way: Making It Work in the Enterprise	John C. Goodpasture	2009
97	-	Agile Software Development with Distributed Teams	Jutta Eckstein	2010
98	-	SDLC 3.0: Beyond a Tacit Understanding of Agile	Mark Kennaley	2010
99	33	Scaling Software Agility: Best Practices for Large Enterprises	Dean Leffingwell	2007
100	95	Test-Driven Development: A Practical Guide	David Astels	2003

TY = position this year

LY = position last year