Read the Agile Manifesto and principles in plain language, then connect them to real decisions teams make. This chapter separates Agile thinking from rituals that only look Agile.

Agile teams need clear responsibility without heavy handoffs. This chapter covers product owners, Scrum Masters, developers, stakeholders, managers, sponsors, customers, and how authority should flow.

Agile work starts with a reason to build, not a list of tasks. You will practice framing outcomes, users, problems, constraints, and product goals that can guide delivery.

Backlogs make changing work visible and manageable. This chapter covers product backlog items, user stories, job stories, acceptance criteria, refinement, ordering, and keeping a backlog healthy.

Large work is hard to estimate, test, and finish. You will practice splitting features by user value, workflow steps, rules, data, risk, and learning goals.

Agile planning uses forecasts, not promises. This chapter covers relative estimation, story points, t-shirt sizing, planning poker, no-estimates thinking, capacity, uncertainty, and when estimates help or hurt.

Scrum gives teams a simple structure for learning while delivering. This chapter covers sprints, sprint planning, the daily Scrum, sprint review, retrospective, product backlog, sprint backlog, increment, and Definition of Done.

Kanban helps teams improve flow without forcing timeboxed sprints. You will set up boards, limit work in progress, manage blocked work, measure flow, and improve policies over time.

Strong Agile teams rely on technical habits that make change safe. This chapter covers test-driven development, refactoring, pair and mob programming, simple design, collective ownership, and continuous integration.

Agile work is not only building what was requested. You will practice customer interviews, assumption mapping, prototypes, experiments, usability tests, and evidence-based product decisions.

Sprint and iteration planning turn goals into a focused plan of work. This chapter covers selecting backlog items, setting a sprint goal, checking capacity, spotting dependencies, and avoiding overloaded commitments.

Daily coordination should reveal problems early, not become a status performance. This chapter covers standups, blockers, swarming, task boards, working agreements, and when to change the meeting.

The end of an iteration should prove what changed. This chapter covers demos, stakeholder feedback, acceptance, release decisions, unfinished work, and how reviews keep teams tied to outcomes.

Retrospectives help teams improve the system they work in. You will use formats for safety, root-cause thinking, experiments, action items, and follow-through.

Agile teams need evidence that work is flowing and value is improving. This chapter covers velocity, throughput, cycle time, lead time, cumulative flow diagrams, escaped defects, outcome metrics, and metric misuse.

Follow one feature from user problem to discovery, backlog item, planning, development, testing, review, release, measurement, and follow-up. This end-to-end chapter shows how Agile practices connect in real delivery.

Most Agile teams use digital tools to make work visible. This chapter covers practical use of Jira, Azure DevOps, Trello-style boards, backlog hygiene, dashboards, automation, and tool habits that support rather than control the team.

Modern Agile delivery depends on being able to release safely and often. This chapter covers version control, continuous integration, automated tests, deployment pipelines, feature flags, rollback plans, and working with operations.

Agile teams still need architecture and design decisions. This chapter covers evolutionary architecture, technical debt, enablers, spikes, nonfunctional requirements, architecture runway, and balancing speed with maintainability.

Quality is built into Agile work from the start. This chapter covers Definition of Done, acceptance testing, exploratory testing, regression testing, test automation, accessibility, security checks, and shared quality ownership.

Agile planning must connect team work to business decisions. This chapter covers roadmaps, release plans, forecasts, cost of delay, MVPs, budget conversations, stakeholder tradeoffs, and communicating uncertainty clearly.

Many Agile teams now work across homes, offices, and time zones. This chapter covers async communication, remote facilitation, digital collaboration, documentation habits, team agreements, and keeping trust high without constant meetings.

Large organizations need coordination without crushing team autonomy. This chapter covers cross-team dependencies, shared backlogs, Scrum of Scrums, Nexus, LeSS, SAFe concepts, portfolio flow, and when scaling frameworks add cost.

Modern organizations often improve flow by changing team design. This chapter covers stream-aligned teams, platform teams, enabling teams, complicated-subsystem teams, cognitive load, handoffs, and Conway’s Law.

Agile can work in regulated settings, but the evidence and controls must be explicit. This chapter covers audit trails, traceability, approvals, validation, risk controls, documentation, privacy, security, and safety duties.

Contracts, vendors, and fixed budgets can fight Agile if they are designed for certainty. This chapter covers outcome-based contracts, incremental funding, procurement constraints, change control, vendor collaboration, and practical compromise.

Agile is often weakened by shallow adoption. This chapter covers cargo-cult ceremonies, fake empowerment, overloaded backlogs, vanity metrics, hidden waterfall, hero culture, and ways to repair them.

AI tools can help with backlog drafting, meeting summaries, test ideas, risk checks, documentation, and pattern finding. This chapter also covers privacy, hallucinations, bias, over-automation, and keeping human judgment in charge.

Changing how an organization works takes more than teaching Scrum events. This chapter covers leadership behavior, incentives, coaching, psychological safety, change fatigue, communities of practice, and measuring whether the change is helping.

Close by mapping the Agile landscape: team member, product owner, Scrum Master, Agile coach, delivery lead, product manager, and related roles. You will identify proof-of-skill artifacts, useful certifications, communities, books, conferences, and habits for staying current.