Joy of Agility: How to Solve Problems and Succeed Sooner

by Joshua Kerievsky

Overview

Agility enables you, your team, and your organization to streamline slow and awkward actions, overcome obstacles quickly, and adapt to change with ease and grace.

Agility isn’t a formula, a framework, nor a set of roles and rituals to follow. It’s a timeless way of being that matures with practice and skill. Becoming agile involves knowing the difference between being quick or hurrying, moving with ease or difficulty, being in or out of balance, graceful or awkward, adaptable or rigid, resourceful or resentful.

With Joy of Agility, Joshua Kerievsky, CEO of Industrial Logic, one of the oldest and most-respected agile consultancies in the world, shows you how to harness agility in work and life to solve problems and succeed sooner.

Kerievsky shares six essential agile mantras, plus unforgettable, real-world stories of agile people and teams, that will empower you to be quick, adaptable, and resourceful in the face of challenges and opportunities.

Learn how to:

• Distinguish between being quick and hurrying
• Gain better balance and collaborate gracefully with others
• Prepare and practice being poised to adapt
• Take deliberate steps to drive out fear
• Grow a solution by starting minimal and evolving
• Overcome obstacles by being readily resourceful

Use the lessons learned in Joy of Agility to transform agility from a mere buzzword into an approach that helps you obtain triumphant results.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781637742778
Publisher:	BenBella Books, Inc.
Publication date:	02/07/2023
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Joshua Kerievsky is an entrepreneur, software designer, author and speaker. He is the founder and CEO of Industrial Logic, an agile consultancy that helps many of the world’s most recognized brands improve product development. Joshua loves cooking, tennis, hiking and travel. He is a dad to three daughters and lives with his partner, Maria, and two dogs in Northern California.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This delightful book shines a light on both why and how to create agility in your organization. Through stories that are as engaging as they are insightful, Joshua Kerievsky shows how a culture of fear and a mindless pursuit of efficiency drive out learning and stifle agility. A set of simple, actionable mantras provide the way forward.”
—Amy C. Edmondson, Professor, Harvard Business School and Author, The Fearless Organization
 
“Very well crafted and told; it’s hard to imagine a more illuminating guide to this mission-critical subject.”
—Harry Beckwith, New York Times Bestselling Author, Selling the Invisible
 
“Joy is the perfect word for this book. Joshua takes a beautiful approach to change by sharing compelling stories of agility in so many different industries and contexts. It will be impossible to not have a dozen of these stories inspire you on your own journey to the very human Joy of Agility.”
—Richard Sheridan, CEO and Chief Storyteller, Menlo Innovations and Author, Joy, Inc. and Chief Joy Officer
 
“Stories influence our behavior more often and more effectively than logic, no matter how much we might pretend otherwise. Joshua Kerievsky has distilled his expertise into six mantras and illustrated each with short, captivating stories.”
—Mary Poppendieck, Co-author, Lean Software Development series
 
“Joshua Kerievsky understands something very important about our species: We are storytellers. It is not only our preferred way of learning but also how our brains make sense of the world. Joshua’s stories are inspirational and will lead you to discover the real joy of agility.”
—Linda Rising, PhD, coauthor, Fearless Change and More Fearless Change
 
“Joy is a tell. If you have joy on your team, you are in the most prized collaborative state. There is no better step you can take toward experiencing team joy than reading this book. It is a treasury of joyful practice, and you deserve to have it all.”
—Jim McCarthy, coauthor of Software for Your Head and Dynamics of Software Development

“Whether you’re an accomplished or aspiring agilist (or somewhere in between), this rich compendium is a bounty for anyone who wants to foster a culture of adaptability, collaboration, and improvement, while creating a more intentional, efficient, sustainable, and—above all—outstanding work experience and product. Engaging and inspiring, Joy of Agility is an absolute joy from beginning to end!”
—Tonianne DeMaria, coauthor of Shingo-award-winning Personal Kanban

“Joshua, a fervent agile pioneer, understands the power of story and has assembled a host of stories that present facts and ideas about 'being' agile as opposed to 'doing' agile. Like shades of color on a palette, Joy of Agility enables us to understand both the broad sweep and nuances of agility; Enjoy. Learn. Remember. Act.”
—Jim Highsmith, agile pioneer, author, and former executive consultant at Thoughtworks

“Reading Joy of Agility makes me want to hand this book to all of my clients. I love the definition of agile and the compelling stories that make one both think and laugh!”
—Jutta Eckstein, business coach, change manager, and author of Company-wide Agility with Beyond Budgeting, Open Space  & Sociocracy, Agile Software Development in the Large, and Agile Software Development with Distributed Teams

“Joshua has become the consummate voice of agility; there in the early days, helping shape and deeply understand the new practices introduced by the Agile movement . . . Whether you have been practicing agility for 20+ years or have barely heard of the concept, you'll want to pick up Joy of Agility.”
—Michael Spayd, founder of The Collective Edge and coauthor of Agile Transformation: Using the Integral Agile Transformation Framework to Think and Lead Differently

“Brilliant work and a dazzling diversity of stories!”
—Pat Reed, executive agile consultant in Australia and USA