12 Agile Thought Leaders to Follow

It looks like I like to create for others to read articles a lot. If you just count, it's one, two, three already. So why not continue? Especially when many people have already asked me, "Anton, which Agile thought leaders would you personally recommend following?". So here they are! Twelve wise people who I follow and highly recommend you to do the same if you want to understand what Agile truly means.

Jurgen calls himself a creative networker. But sometimes he's a writer, speaker, trainer, entrepreneur, illustrator, manager, blogger, reader, dreamer, leader, freethinker, or… Dutch guy. Since 2008, Jurgen writes a popular blog at NOOP.NL, offering ideas on the creative economy, agile management, organizational change, and personal development. He is the author of the book Management 3.0, which describes the role of the manager in agile organizations. And he is the original creator of all learning objectives of the workshop of the same name.

Reason to follow: If you want to evolve from a traditional manager into an Agile leader.

Kent Beck is an American software engineer and the creator of Extreme Programming, a software development methodology that eschews rigid formal specification for a collaborative and iterative design process. Beck was one of the 17 original signatories of the Agile Manifesto. The Extreme and Agile methods are closely associated with Test-Driven Development (TDD), of which Beck is perhaps the leading proponent.

Reason to follow: If you want to understand the XP mindset, which is the best add-on to your Scrum.

Dr. Alistair Cockburn, co-author of the Agile Manifesto, was voted into the "150 All-time IT Heroes" in 2007. He is the author of the award-winning book Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game, co-founder of the International Consortium for Agile, and creator of the Heart of Agile concept.

Reason to follow: If you want to grasp the knowledge that became so common in the Agile community that many don't even know where it came from and why.

James Grenning trains, coaches, and consults worldwide. With more than three decades of software development experience, both technical and managerial, James brings knowledge, skill, and creativity to software development teams and their management. As his professional roots are in embedded software, James' mission is to bring state-of-the-art technical and management practices to embedded development teams. He is the author of Test-Driven Development for Embedded C. He invented Planning Poker, an estimating technique used around the world, and participated in the creation of the Agile Manifesto.

Reason to follow: If you want to understand TDD.

Ron Jeffries was the on-site XP coach for the original Extreme Programming project. He is an author of Extreme Programming Installed, the second book published about XP. Ron is also the proprietor of www.xprogramming.com, one of the longest-running and certainly the largest one-person site on XP, comprising over 200 articles at this time. He is one of the 17 original signatories of the Agile Manifesto.

Reason to follow: If you want to understand the terms "Faux Agile" and "Dark Agile."

Robert Martin is an American software engineer and instructor. He is best known for being one of the authors of the Agile Manifesto and for developing several software design principles. Five of the principles have become known collectively as the SOLID principles, and have received wide attention in the software industry. He is also an outspoken advocate of software craftsmanship, agile software development, and test-driven software development.

Reason to follow: If you want to understand the idea of software craftsmanship.

Tobias is such a unique person that it's better to let him introduce himself: "I am a citizen of the corporate badlands—that uncomfortable space on the outer edges of the business world. I write, and engage people in awkward, but purposeful conversations. To earn a living I work as an educator, facilitator and occasional consultant. I'm the author of The People's Scrum and founder/co-host of the London Facilitator Labs, collaborative spaces for those willing to walk the fine line between truth and unemployment."

Reason to follow: If you want to truly feel the meaning of "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools," the first value from Agile Manifesto.

Jeff Patton helps companies adopt a way of working that's focused on building great products, not just building stuff faster. Jeff blends a mixture of Agile thinking, Lean and Lean Startup Thinking, and UX Design and Design Thinking to end up with a holistic product-centric way of working. Jeff is the author of the bestselling O'Reilly book User Story Mapping which describes a simple holistic approach to using stories in Agile development without losing sight of the big picture.

Reason to follow: If you want to become a really experienced Product Owner.

Mary considered retirement 1998, but instead found herself managing a government software project where she first encountered the word "waterfall." When Mary compared her experience in successful software and product development to the prevailing opinions about how to manage software projects, she decided the time had come for a new paradigm. She wrote the award-winning book Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit in 2003 to explain how the lean principles from manufacturing offer a better approach to software development.

Reason to follow: If you want to understand how Toyota company would operate if it were a software development company.

Since 2001, Michael Sahota has been guiding success with Agile. Since 2010, he has held his Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC) designation. In 2012, he published the ground-breaking book An Agile Adoption and Transformation Survival Guide: Working with Organizational Culture. In 2018, he published Emotional Science: The Key to High Performance. Michael is working on his upcoming book on Culture and Leadership.

Reason to follow: If you want to get practical ideas in the field of Agile transformation and adoption and to know the difference between these two terms.

Ken Schwaber is a software developer, product manager, and industry consultant. Ken worked with Jeff Sutherland to formulate the initial versions of the Scrum framework. They have extended and enhanced Scrum at many software companies and IT organizations. Schwaber and Sutherland are two of the 17 initial signatories of the Agile Manifesto. They are co-authors of the definitive Scrum Guide.

Reason to follow: If you want to understand Scrum by heart.

Dave Snowden is a Welsh management consultant and researcher in the field of knowledge management. Known for the development of the Cynefin framework. Snowden is the author of several articles and book chapters on the Cynefin framework, the development of narrative as a research method, and the role of complexity in sensemaking.

Reason to follow: If you want to start a deep dive into systems theory, complexity theory, network theory and learning theories which give you a fundamental understanding behind Agile, Scrum, Management 3.0 and other modern ideas.

And that's all for today.

Do more with less and may the force be with you!
#agileism