An ever-useful guide to surfing the waves of agile software development

The revised edition of Derk-Jan de Grood’s “Surfing the waves of Agile” contains the same useful core as the first edition. In short, it’s a good tool for employees and organizations who want to grow to the next level of agile maturity and are consciously or unconsciously encountering obstacles. Besides recognizing the adjustments needed at various levels in such a growth trajectory, it offers extensive practical support in the form of handy tables and checklists. A major advantage is that the book is richly illustrated with practical examples. This allows the reader to quickly identify with the content – it can be reassuring to know that you’re “not the only one” struggling with these issues.

The book is clearly aimed at agile leaders and coaches, but on occasion, it also seeks technical depth. This somewhat disrupts the overall narrative for those primary target audiences. For example, it would help to move the technical aspects of “Development practices” in Chapter 2 to the end of the book or even to an appendix. Many leaders and coaches will also find sections like those on BDD and TDD too in-depth; they would be better off skipping to the next chapter.

As can be gathered from these topics, the book focuses on agile working and development in the software space. In recent years, the principles have been applied in a broader context, including the hardware domain and governmental organizations that need to work more adaptively. This extended use isn’t covered in the book. Neither is the impact of artificial intelligence on many functions and roles. In De Grood’s terminology, the rise of AI could very well be viewed as a “fourth wave” as well.

Interestingly, the revised edition instead designates an addition to Frederic Laloux’s “Reinventing organizations” model as the fourth wave. It’s a pity that the model’s characteristic visualization, with the colored concentric circles and the prominent “teal” (greenish blue) level, isn’t featured in the book, as this could have further aided the reader’s understanding. Another potential improvement would be to extend the transformational roadmap in Chapter 4 with the challenges of the Laloux-inspired fourth wave. It would also be beneficial to link the transformation design in Chapter 5 to the popular change management methodologies of Kotter and Prosci.

Nevertheless, the revised edition remains a useful guide for those leaders and coaches who are entering the agile field or seeking further development. They can readily use the book to progressively navigate the agile wave.