Essential Scrum: A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile Process (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Cohn))
A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile Process The Single-Source, Comprehensive Guide to Scrum for All Team Members, Managers, and Executives If you want to use Scrum to develop innovative products and services that delight your customers, Essential Scrum is the complete, single-source reference you’ve been searching for. Leading Scrum coach and trainer Kenny Rubin illuminates the values, principles, and practices of Scrum, and describes flexible, proven approaches that can help you implement it far more effectively. Whether you are new to Scrum or years into your use, this book will introduce, clarify, and deepen your Scrum knowledge at the team, product, and portfolio levels. Drawing from Rubin’s experience helping hundreds of organizations succeed with Scrum, this book provides easy-to-digest descriptions enhanced by more than two hundred illustrations based on an entirely new visual icon language for describing Scrum’s roles, artifacts, and act
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SCRUM for Newbies… and definitely NOT a Page-Turner !,
If you are already experienced, there are a few other books for deeper dives… I’ll update this review with those recommendations (or message me for a list of what I’ve read on the subject, and which other books to definitely just stay away from–I don’t think its nice to critique those here).
This book is truly about the Essentials. It’s one of those reads where you keep reading because you think you are going to miss something if you skip the page or a chapter… but at the same time you keep checking to see how many more pages till you finish it. Not a page turner… at least not for me. I have kept the book as a reference guide, though I haven’t referred to it in since I finished reading it about 5-6 months ago… but I’m hopefully and write this review because I continue to be asked about SCRUM.
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|Excellent Resource for New and Maturing Agile Organizations,
And there is more. The book provides a very accessible treatment of three important topics that most other books miss. The importance of managing Technical Debt and the Lean concepts of Batch Size and limiting Work in Progress are essential in understanding how Scrum works and how to achieve a smooth flow for significantly higher value output. The shift in Management duties in an Agile organization is a critical aspect of cultural change. Ken also provides a short description of the topics that answer the frequently asked question “How do you scale Scrum?”: Feature Teams, Scrum of Scrums and Release Trains.
The descriptions of the Product Owner and Development Team roles in this book go beyond the basic introduction, describing the work of the PO in preparatory and ongoing planning and describing important characteristics of a successful Dev Team. The ScrumMaster role is given fewer pages so you may want to supplement that topic with other sources when trying to convince your organization of the importance of that role. My experience shows that organizations often misunderstand and subsequently short-change the SM role, missing an important opportunity to improve team productivity and development flow from the start. The book is, however, a very valuable resource for working ScrumMasters with its excellent coverage of the Scrum meetings, tips for facilitation and treatment of Team dynamics.
I am now recommending this book to my ScrumMaster students and the teams that I coach. It is an excellent introduction and supporting reference book for organizations who are transitioning to Scrum or working their way up the Agile learning curve.
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|The Scrum Book to Have!!!!,
After a nice introductory chapter to Scrum, which includes the history of how Scrum came to be, the book breaks down into four parts. They include Core Concepts, Roles, Planning, and Sprinting. I have listed each part below along with the chapters found in each one.
Chapter 1. Introduction
Part I. Core Concepts
Chapter 2. Scrum Framework
Chapter 3. Agile Principles
Chapter 4. Sprints
Chapter 5. Requirements and User Stories
Chapter 6. Product Backlog
Chapter 7. Estimation and Velocity
Chapter 8. Technical Debt
Part II. Roles
Chapter 9. Product Owner
Chapter 10. ScrumMaster
Chapter 11. Development Team
Chapter 12. Scrum Team Structures
Chapter 13. Managers
Part III. Planning
Chapter 14. Scrum Planning Principles
Chapter 15. Multilevel Planning
Chapter 16. Portfolio Planning
Chapter 17. Envisioning (Product Planning)
Chapter 18. Release Planning (Longer-Term Planning)
Part IV. Sprinting
Chapter 19. Sprint Planning
Chapter 20. Sprint Execution
Chapter 21. Sprint Review
Chapter 22. Sprint Retrospective
Chapter 23. The Path Forward
The author’s advice on when to use Scrum is a refreshing one. He is not one of the many Scrum zealots, mindlessly regurgitating Scrum mantras. He gives a nice overview of where Scrum works and where it doesn’t in the introduction of the book. He also presents a realistic view on how difficult Scrum is. Scrum is not easy and the author makes that very clear.
One of the coolest parts of this book is the visual icon language used to create the diagrams. The diagrams in this book are some of the best I’ve ever seen. They really help to put the topic being covered with words into a visual context for better understanding.
The author’s writing style is great, which makes the book an enjoyable read. Along with the visual icon language I would have to say this is the most descriptive book about Scrum I have read. Meaning the ideas were really drilled home in a very clear way.
The chapter on agile principles is great. The author really does a great job of comparing agile practice to plan driven practices and highlighting the difference. By the end of this chapter you have a great understand of the “why” agile practices are done and how Scrum implements them.
I was also glad to see the chapters on Multilevel Planning , Portfolio Planning, Envisioning, and Release Planning. When it comes to explaining how Scrum fits into the rest of the enterprise, many of the Scrum books I have read have a short blurb on Scrum of Scrums, and then move on back into topics only suited for small team development. These chapters take Scrum beyond small team development.
I like that the book has a really nice glossary for quick look ups of buzz words that may be new to you.
If you have to pick just one Scrum book, make this one your pick. If you are looking to learn Scrum, definitely start here. If you are a Scrum Master, this is the book to take your team through during training.
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