Preface

I’m an active blogger at www.benlinders.com. On my blog, I share my experiences on agile and lean topics, including agile self-assessments.

I have always been a big fan of assessments. They help you to reflect, see how you are doing, and find ways to improve.

In the early nineties, I started doing assessments with the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) which later became the CMMI. I preferred doing class C assessments; focused mini-assessments where I worked intensively together with professionals to help them find out how well they were doing and what they could improve on.

When agile started taking off in this century, many of teams that I worked with wanted to find out how agile they are. I searched for tools and checklists on agile which I studied in detail. I also tried out some of them, where I tailored them to suit the specific needs of the teams/organizations that I work with.

Over the years I found many checklists and tools that can be used for self-assessment; I’m listing them on my Agile Self-Assessment Tools and Checklists webpage which I’m maintaining since September 2013.

Early 2016 I created the first version of my card game to do Agile Self-assessments with teams. I started using the game more often in my workshops to teach agile practices and when I coach teams to help them reflect and improve at their own pace. Every time I used it I adapted the game by improving the statements on the cards, dropping cards, and adding new cards.

The first public appearance with the Agile Self-assessment Game was at XP Days 2016. The room was fully booked, people really liked the game and spoke highly of it.

Next, I added the game to my webshop. In the first months, 1000++ people downloaded the game and played it. It got great reviews and became a big success. I added expansion packs for specific agile frameworks and updated the game based on the feedback received and my experiences from playing it.

This is the first book specifically about Agile Self-assessments. In this book, I explain what self-assessments are and why you would do them, and explore how to do them using the Agile Self-assessment Game. I’m also sharing experience stories from people who played the game.

This book is based on my 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.

I’m aiming this book 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.

I love to hear your experiences from playing the game. Feel free to email me at benlinders@gmail.com!

Finally, I would like to thank all the people who invest time to read my blog and comment on the articles. Your feedback helps me to increase my understanding of the topics that I write about and makes it worthwhile for me to keep blogging!

Ben Linders
January 2019