· What sorts of methodologies fit what sorts of projects

· Indices for selecting the appropriate methodology category for a project

· The principles behind agile methodologies Being an intermediate practitioner, you will recognize that you must add your own judgement when applying these ideas.

If you are an advanced practitioner, you already know that all recommendations vary in applicability.

You may be looking for words to help you express that. You will find those words where the following topics are presented:

· Managing the incompleteness of communication

· Continuous methodology reinvention

· The manifesto for agile software development A few topics should be new even to advanced software developers: the vocabulary for describing methodologies and the technique for just-in-time methodology tuning.

By Reading Style

The earlier chapters are more abstract than the later chapters.

If you enjoy abstract material, read the book from beginning to end, watching the play of abstract topics to see the resolution of the impossible questions through the course of the book.

If you want concrete materials in your hands as quickly as possible, you may want to skip over the early chapters on the first read and start with Chapter 3, "Methodologies." Return to the sections about "Cooperative Games" and "Convection Currents of Information" to get the key parts of the new vocabulary. Dip into the introduction and the sections about Individuals and Teams to fill in the gaps.

By Role

People who sponsor software development can get from this book an understanding of how various organizational, behavioral, and funding structures affect the rate at which they receive value from their development teams. Project sponsors may pay less attention to the details of methodology construction than people who are directly involved in the projects. They should still understand the consequences of certain sorts of methodology decisions.