Updates:

• Also available on Amazon in Paperback at amazon.com/9492119161
• Also available in Spanish: El Juego de Autoevaluación Ágil

The Agile Self-Assessment Game is used by teams and organizations to self-assess their agility. Playing the game enables teams to reflect on their own team interworking, discover how agile they are and decide what they can do to increase their agility to deliver more value to their customers and stakeholders.

This is the first book specifically about Agile Self-assessments. In this book, Ben Linders explains what self-assessments are and why you would do them, and explore how to do them using the Agile Self-assessment Game. He's also sharing experience stories from people who played the game.

This book is based on his experience as a developer, tester, team leader, project manager, quality manager, process manager, consultant, coach, trainer, and adviser in Agile, Lean, Quality and Continuous Improvement. It takes a deep dive into self-assessments, viewing them from different perspectives and provides ideas, suggestions, practices, and experiences that will help you to do effective agile self-assessments with your teams.

The book is aimed at Scrum masters, agile coaches, consultants leading agile transformations, developers and testers, project managers, line managers, and CxOs; basically for anyone who is looking for an effective way to help their agile teams improve and to increase the agility of their organization.

To play the game described in the book, please buy a package that includes the cards. Currently available are:

• Agile Self-assessment Game - English edition: The book (in English) with 52 basic Agile cards and expansions packs for Scrum (39 cards), Kanban (52 cards), DevOps (26 cards) and Business Agility (26 cards). Total of 195 English cards!
• Juego Autoevaluación Ágil - Spanish edition: The book (in English) with 52 basic Agile cards in Spanish and expansions packs in Spanish for Scrum (39 cards), Kanban (52 cards), DevOps (26 cards) and Business Agility (26 cards). Total of 195 Spanish cards!
• Agilní sebehodnotící hra - Czech edition: The book (in English) with 52 basic Agile cards in Czech and expansions packs in Czech for Scrum (39 cards), Kanban (52 cards), DevOps (26 cards) and Business Agility (26 cards). Total of 195 Czech cards!
• Gra Agile Self-Assessment - Polish edition: The book (in English) with 52 basic Agile cards in Polish and expansions packs in Polish for Scrum (39 cards), Kanban (52 cards), DevOps (26 cards) and Business Agility (26 cards). Total of 195 Polish cards!
• Agile Zelfevaluatie Kaarten - Dutch edition: The book (in English) with 52 basic Agile cards in Dutch and expansions packs in Dutch for Scrum (39 cards), Kanban (52 cards), DevOps (26 cards), and Business Agility (26 cards). Total of 195 Dutch cards!
• Jeu de cartes d’autoévaluation Agile - French edition: The book (in English) with 52 basic Agile cards in French. Total of 52 French cards!

Additional cards can be bought in the Agile Games webshop.

More information can be found on the Agile Self-assessment Game website.

With the ever-growing demand for highly skilled professionals to work in cross-functional teams, it can be difficult navigating the workflow of Agile alone, as Technical Communicators often are. In this book we will explore what you need to know about Agile and highlight the benefits of adopting Agile in your everyday work life.

From being more effective when working with your team, to aligning your technical communication deliverables with your team’s sprint goals. Along the way we will explore how technical communication can open doors into a wide range of opportunities.

The book will also cover Agile best practices along with my own first-hand insights.

Core Concepts

In An Agile Playbook for Technical Communicators, you will learn about the following:

• What Agile is, and the benefits of using it. Along with the pain points that may arise from time to time.
• The basic concepts of Agile.
• Features of a typical Agile workflow.
• How cross-functional teams work in Agile.
• How product and user documentation in Agile differs from the documents required by traditional methods.
• What the Agile Technical Communicator’s role is in Agile.
• Plus, tips on adding value as an “Agile” Technical Communicator.

What if you are not a Technical Communicator or Documentation Specialist?

As the Table of Contents shows, this book does cover many core Agile concepts that anyone new to Agile will find valuable when working with Agile Teams.

Agile comms is a set of techniques to help teams communicate clearly and creatively about work in progress.

It helps you communicate faster and more flexibly, adjusting what you say to changing circumstances.

It helps you use a human tone of voice, and a little creative flair, to get your point across to busy people.

“This book will set you and your comms team free.”

-- Georgina Goode, NASA JPL

“This is fantastic. Full of smart and useful advice.”

-- Russell Davies, author, Everything I Know About Life I Learned From PowerPoint

Students often hate team collaboration, even though this is what they will need to do after graduation. Many students tell me they hate team assignments. This book tells you how to succeed in team collaboration situations.

Students worry about the team where no one cooperates, and only a few people do the real work. There are solutions to these challenges. You can do the work together instead of individually.

Some students worry about what happens if the team messes up the work. They fear that they might do it 'wrong', at poor quality, or are too slow to finish. The person here has many options to ensure that it is 'done correctly', at the right level of quality, and is done on time. You can do some parts together to set standards, and start integrating your work early too so that you fill in gaps, and revise it sooner rather than later.

Other students worry that the team lacks the skills required to do the work. They fear that learning new skills will take too long, and cause issues. The team can do a number of things to resolve this. Pair share and work together to learn the skills and apply them as a team.

The suggestions you find in this book will help you avoid the nightmare scenarios of team collaboration, so that you can move towards a dream experience.

Simply begin with these ideas and then add more where you see opportunities. The book offers over 101 more ideas to help you work better with others.

The book is broken into ten chapters that will guide you towards better team collaborations. Find out how you might use a team charter to agree on how you'll do the work as a team before you start. Explore how you know that you're colleagues are doing their work, and that it will be ready on time. Get tips on how you can remove risk from your work from the start, so that you sleep better at night.

Ten Categories of Team Collaboration

1. Why bother to collaborate?

2. Who's on the team?

3. How do we work together?

4. How do we talk to each other?

5. How do we stay in touch?

6. How do we know how much work there is to do?

7. How do we decide what order to do the work?

8. How do remove risk from our work?

9. How do we pull the work together?

10. How do we review what we did?

A key part of the book is a focus on the many aspects of team collaboration, which should be put in place before you start your work together. These also help you work more smoothly together. With them in place, all of your work should go smoother.

Use the book to suit your context, and apply more ideas where they seem suitable. You can start to apply the ideas with your current collaborations, and also use them when you start new ones.

The book is now complete.