Learning Agile Software Development the Hard Way

1. Read

Read one or more of the following:

• Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change by Kent Beck (If you're up for it, read both the first and 2nd edition).
• The Art of Agile Development by James Shore and Shane Warden.  A lot of the book is freely available here but if you like, I'm sure they'd appreciate it if you bought the full book.
• The Agile Samurai by Jonathan Rasmusson.

(FREE) Explore Don Well's site: Extreme Programming: A Gentle Introduction.

(FREE) Read the Scrum Guide.

2. Participate in the community

Join a local user group.  Meetup.com currently dominates.  I'd suggest also finding or setting up a local Lean Coffee.

Follow Agile people on Twitter.  My handle is @jchyip.  There's an old 2012 list of "The Top 20 Most Influential Agile People".  Probably a reasonable group of people to start with.

Subscribe to Agile blogs.  There's an old 2011 list of "The Top 200 Agile Blogs".  Probably a reasonable place to start.

3. Learn and practice the craft

1. Learn about User Stories and User Story Mapping
• Read User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton
2. Learn Test Driven Development (TDD)
• Read Test Driven Development: By Example by Kent Beck
• Read Refactoring by Martin Fowler
3. Practice TDD and Pair  Programming
• Practice using Code Katas.  Alternatively, look for similar language-specific exercises for your particular programming language.  For example, Ruby Quiz.
• Find or setup a Coding Dojo.  This seems to have become more rare so instead...
• Join or host a CodeRetreat.
4. Learn about testing in the Agile context
• Explore Brian Marick's old Agile testing site.
5. Learn about Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery
• Read Continuous Delivery by Jez Humble and Dave Farley.
6. Write about what you are learning

3. Learn the big picture

1. Read about the Agile Fluency Model
2. Read Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler
3. Explore Lean Software Development
4. Explore Kanban for software development
• Read Kanban & Scrum - Making the Most of Both by Henrik Kniberg and Mattias Skarin
• Read Kanban by David Anderson
5. Explore Lean Startup
• Read The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
• Do The Lean Launchpad online course 
• Participate in a Lean Startup Machine
6. Watch Spotify Engineering Culture videos (Part 1) (Part 2)
7. Attend conferences.  I recommend smaller, local, not vendor-focused conferences rather than the massive ones.  Open Space conferences tend to be good if you get the right crowd.  YOW! / GOTO / QCon tend to be good.  Lean Kanban conferences tends to be good.

4. Explore the less known

1. Read Crystal Clear by Alistair Cockburn
2. Read Agile Software Development by Alistair Cockburn
3. Read Lean Product and Process Development by Allen C. Ward
4. Read The Principles of Product Development Flow by Donald G. Reinertsen