Agile Software Development with Scrum (Series in Agile Software Development)

I first purchased and read "Agile Software Development with SCRUM" after talking at length with Ken Schwaber at a software development conference in 2001.I find some of terminology used in the Scrum process to be a bit trite - such as "Pigs and Chickens" - but the approach itself is solid. Overall, I'm sold on the process, and have employed many of Scrum's concepts in projects I've managed.Scrum focuses on delivering maximum quality and predictability of the software development process with minimum overhead. The book is rather expensive given its length, but is a really good and thought-provoking introduction to a means of managing software development in way that empowers the folks who do the actual development while ensuring that those with a vested interest in the results get a reasonable quality deliverable (or deliverables) in a timely manner; and have a well defined means of tracking progress and providing guidance or feedback before it is too late for an off-track project to get back on course.Anyone working to start-up a new software development project should read this book, if for no other reason then to gain insights into what really matters when managing such a project; how to manage without needlessly burdening the team members, or destroying their creativity and enthusiasm; and how to ensure that external forces do not cause a project to spin out of control.On a final note - if you ever get a chance to hear Mr. Schwaber speak, definitely take the opportunity - though a bit salty, he is both entertaining and informative, and very good at responding to questions from his audience - well worth listening-to!

This is the book I've been wanted for years. Until this book, the Scrum development process was not very well known and was documented only piecemeal in a couple of papers and websites. Finally, there's a book a that covers everything you need to know to run your software project using Scrum.Schwaber is the "Godfather of Scrum" and essentially invented the techniques; Beedle was one of the first converts to Scrum and together they definitely know their stuff.The book covers everything from the theoretical basis for Scrum to how to organize your teams, conduct daily Scrum meetings to keep things moving along, to planning your Scrum project, to tracking the "backlog" of items that need to be completed to finish a project.Scrum is not a rehash of another methodology. As the authors say, "Scrum is different." Some of the things you'll learn in this book will seem counterintuitive but they work and the authors do a great job of laying out enough information to, if not fully convince you, then at least persuade you to give Scrum a try. (And once you've done that, you'll be convinced!)I think this book is especially important for anyone reading any of the XP books that have come out over the past two years. Scrum provides an excellent management wrapper around the techniques of XP.This book is great because it's only 150 pages but everything is succinct and clear--very different from some other books on project management techniques that are needlessly long.After reading this book you will know everything needed to get started with a Scrum project--and most likely that project will be more successful with Scrum than with whatever process you're using currently.

People aren't very good at seeing into the future. If we do foresee what is going to happen, we often get the "when" of it wrong. And even if we get the what and the when right, we rarely predict the "what else" - all those unpredictable events that inevitably upset any plan. So why are so many software methodologies built so solidly around precise, complex, long-term plans? The only reason such methodologies appear to work at all is that everyone, their fondest proponents included, spend a lot of time running around behind the scenes, bolstering them each time the predictably unpredictable kicks another prop out from under.Here's a radical proposal: why don't we just say that we're going to do (and then do) what we were going to do anyway? That's Scrum. It's built around short time-scales, a month or so, the kind where forecasting has a chance to work. It counts on simple plans with unambiguous goals, to be completed within those timeframes. It demands that people just go ahead and do what needs to be done, even if a few rules get bent, things that people would have done anyway. The difference lies in doing them with head held high, not as midnight missions intended to sneak success into fundamentally broken plans, in spite of counter-productive rules.The consequences of the approach are far-reaching. For one, it outlaws the plus-one disease, or mission creep, or feature-itis, or whatever you call it. This plain-spoken approach makes promises and works to keep them - having the content of the promise changed by fiat, halfway through, is outlawed. There's a time and a place new commitements to be made, and that is not in the heat of the development moment. "Scrum" uses many sports analogies, and moving the goalposts (or having them moved) is not part of its game.There's a lot more too it, of course, and that's why describing Scrum takes a whole book. It has a lot to like, including an emphasis on personal responsibility and even bravery - things that many work environments punish brutally. I don't go along with the authors' revival tent true-believerism. Despite that, there's enough good sense in this book to soften even doubts as solidified as mine.//wiredweird