Publish

Practical guides, not theory books.

Each Agile Data Guide codifies one pattern your data team can use on Monday morning. Worked examples. Real canvases. Anti-patterns. The first book, the Information Product Canvas, is in print now.

Draft cover of An Agile Data Guide to Modeling Business Concepts, the Blue Book Draft cover
Front cover of An Agile Data Guide to Information Product Canvas, the Green Book
Draft cover of An Agile Data Guide to Data Persona Template, the Pink Book Draft cover

the green one is in print now

The Context

What are the Agile Data Guide books?

The Agile Data Guides are a series of practical books, each one focused on a single Agile Data pattern. Choose-your-own-adventure guides for applying the pattern in your team's context, not step-by-step manuals.

The first book, the Information Product Canvas, is in print now. Two more are on the way. Each book has a companion Substack that extends the material with shorter, single-idea articles and worked examples.

We teach your team to do the data work. No team, or no time? AgileData.io will do the work for you.

The problem

Why do most data books gather dust?

Theory in. Theory out. The reader closes the cover and the work on Monday looks exactly like the work on Friday.

These books are written by someone who's been in the trenches. The patterns inside have been used on real Information Products, with real stakeholders, in real organisations. The worked examples are real. The anti-patterns are mistakes Shane has actually made.

That's the only kind of book worth writing.

The shape

How is each Agile Data Guide structured?

Every book follows the same shape: definition and context, step-by-step approach, examples and stories, patterns and anti-patterns, practical application.

  1. Definition
  2. Steps
  3. Examples
  4. Patterns
  5. Practical

You can read it cover to cover. You can dip into the chapter you need. You can use the companion Substack to go deeper on any single idea.

Each book is paired with coaching (so a team can apply it) and a course (so a team can be taught it). The book is the canonical version of the pattern. The Substack is the living extension.

In print now

Coming next

Draft cover of An Agile Data Guide to Modeling Business Concepts, the Blue Book Draft cover

In progress

An Agile Data Guide to Modeling Business Concepts

Co-authored with Juha Korpela. A pattern for modelling business concepts in a way that matches how the business actually thinks.

Draft cover of An Agile Data Guide to Data Persona Template, the Pink Book Draft cover

Coming soon

An Agile Data Guide to Data Persona Template

A template for defining data personas that map to real roles, real outcomes, and real features.

Start here

Start with the Information Product Canvas.

The first book in the series. Used by data teams in NZ, Australia, the UK, and beyond. In print, as an ePub, and extended by a companion Substack.

look for the green cover

Want the pattern coached into your team, or taught as a course?