Recommended Reading for January

John Deere's agile success story - Not mentioned is that they have 105 teams all on two week sprints and 8 week release cycles. In one year, warranty expenses are down 50% and there's a 20% increase in first-to-market features. Read more on the blog of their agile transformation lead, Chad Holdorf. Dean Leffingwell helped John Deere, and his enterprise approach is covered in his great Scaling Software Agility session at Agile2011.

The SOPA and PIPA protests were impressive and effective, but there's more. Noted author and technologist Joel Spolsky writes about what's next. Also, we may see the birth of something truly transformative as crowdfunding becomes a platform for the common people to be heard in Washington. And in case you're wanting something to have a voice about, here something from the NY Times on how we have not taken care of the least among us.

Photos of dozens of agile team rooms. Great for ideas of how to improve your teams' areas.

Almost a dozen helpful agile tools (burndown charts, Kano analysis, checklits) available on Paul Hodgetts' site.

For those into strengths, here's a great review comparing Marcus Buckingham's new strengths assessment StandOut to StrengthsFinder, and a great interview of Marcus on StandOut, his strengths assessment and strengths in general on Drucker on the Dial.

And, on a related note, the 360 performance review is flawed because it, as a relative assessment, only says if the person getting surveyed is more or less compared to the preson asked.

Lots of interesting things coming out of Agile Leadership Europe. I particularly like the fun idea of Bathtub Conferences. Bit of info on ALE, and a rant, from Jurgen Appelo.

Need some recommendations for reading? Here's a nice, commented list of best business books in many categories for 2011, 2010, and on.

And last, do you know anyone who pair programs 40 hours a week? What if it was remote pairing? Videos, slidedecks and more on pair progamming, along with great presentations (and presentation surveys).