I stumbled onto the book Getting Real: The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application while canceling my Backpack service with 37signals. True to the advice they give in the book, 37signals made canceling their service very easy – one of many valuable nuggets of advice offered in the book.
Getting Real describes the practices, both software development and beyond, used by 37signals, a small company that despite their excellent, easy-to-use applications is perhaps still best known as the innovators and driving force behind the Rails framework. Given the tie to the Rails creators, it is not surprising to learn that this book espouses an Agile approach to software development. What differentiates this book from other Agile texts is that it blends both Agile software development practices with, dare I say it, pragmatic guidance from 37signals and other industry notables on the business of creating, releasing and managing Web applications in the Web 2.0 world. This includes advice on staffing and the organization (borrowing from Peopleware), application design (using a user story / UI approach as opposed to a user story / domain object approach), pricing and signup, promotion strategy, support and post-implementation activities.
