Agile methodologies have become the preferred way to manage software projects. According to different reports, more than 70 percent of projects use some sort of agile practices. As remote jobs become more popular, and especially in light of the recent impacts of COVID-19, many agile practices need to be supported virtually. This book looks to point developers and project managers in this direction by presenting cloud-based tools, provided by Azure DevOps, to manage agile development processes.

The book is focused on novice project managers or people with experience in other non-agile methodologies, such as the rational unified process (RUP). In this sense, after a basic introduction to the DevOps life cycle and Azure, the book explains in detail the Scrum framework and a couple of variations for multiple teams (such as SAFE and Nexus). Moreover, other agile methodologies are briefly introduced, including Kanban and extreme programming.

The following chapters explain, using step-by-step screen shots, how to set up and customize the Azure DevOps panel to detail requirements, create Scrum boards, generate reports, obtain performance metrics, initiate iterations, and so on. While this information could be interesting for a novice project manager who wants to use Azure DevOps, it is important to mention that most of it can be found in the online documentation (https://azure.microsoft.com). I was also surprised by the lack of any comparison with other similar and popular tools (such as Jira) to help novice readers (with experience in some of those tools) better understand the concepts of Azure DevOps.

I really enjoyed the last chapter of the book, which presents a use case scenario of the startup of a project using Azure DevOps. I think that this chapter could help novice readers with many doubts that can arise in previous chapters.

In summary, I think this book could be a first approach to Azure DevOps for readers with some experience in software project management. While it is a very basic book, people with some experience in Scrum could find the chapters related to Azure interesting, especially if they are looking to start using that platform.

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