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Agile Software Development with SCRUM | 
 enlarge | Authors: Ken Schwaber, Mike Beedle
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Category: Book
List Price: CDN$ 43.75
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Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 11516
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 158
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.5
ISBN: 0130676349
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.1
EAN: 9780130676344
ASIN: 0130676349
Publication Date: October 21, 2001
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Short introduction to a great system and how to get on it December 22, 2003
Lars Bergstrom (Chicago, IL)
A very practical guide, with easy to follow steps, great motivating arguments, and a logical presentation style make this book really work, especially given its short length. I also really enjoyed the examples given of team transitions. SCRUM itself is a very useful methodology for certain types of projects, and this book makes it clear what those projects are and how to adopt it for them.pOn the bad side, the style change is pretty obvious and jarring when they switch authors, and some of the other-author chapters are interesting, but not necessarily as useful.pMissing from the book is a description of how to get buy-in and how to convince folks using a current process to switch (i.e. how to make and express a logical decision between two processes). It also neglects a bunch of the people issues, such as how to prioritize in career development, training, or even team-building / morale events. The book claims to be about the people and energizing them through shipping products, but I really think that's only one part of making your developers happy. A very important one, mind you, but not the only one.
 A strange mixture of old and new software thinking September 9, 2003
Frank Carver (Ipswich, Suffolk United Kingdom)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book is a strange mixture of trendy agile methodology and dusty corporate management. My guess is that it has been hurriedly re-edited based on an old draft to try and catch the Extreme Programming (XP) bandwagon.pScrum is fundamentally a management technique, aimed at getting the most from development teams. As such it shares some principles with the new programming methodologies but, tellingly, many of the things which can lower the stress and help make software development fun are absent. There's no 40 hour week, developers are encouraged to put in whatever is necessary, even if it means working all night. There's no Pair Programming, and mere programmers are actively discouraged from contacting the customers or users to get instant answers and decisions.pWhere Scrum scores is in heavyweight, bureaucratic organizations, and its team isolation techniques can help to get a more extreme approach off the ground. Be prepared to abandon it like a first-stage booster if you do want to get XP into orbit, though.pThe production quality of this book is poor. The illustrations are laughable pixelated screen dumps, and the same information could have been got across in a book half the size.pIf you are a team leader of a project in chaos, and need a way out, this might be just what you need. But don't ever forget that your team are people, not just resources.
 Great book, wish I had it earlier April 1, 2003
John C. Dunbar (Sugar Land, TX United States)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
SCRUM is a "light weight wrapper" of techniques to manage and guide your software projects. Actually, you could use it on a lot of other types of projects, but software is its best use.pWhat's unique is that it wraps around the "Design it first" school that I follow, as well as the Extreme Programming (XP) school that follows a proto-typing approach.pSCRUM provides the mechanisms for organizing and controlling the development of your software project. You develop a short list of deliverables for the next 30 days and have a series of daily meetings. Oh, there's more to it than this.pIn software projects I have followed a process where the design is fully thought out in advance. I say it is 85 % accurate as I know that mid-course corrections will be made as the software is developed and delivered to the client.pOn large projects we typically work in 2 week deliverables, the author suggests 30 day "sprints". We break all the projects up into many packages of deliverables. One advantage to this was the client could see progress, give on course corrections, and you'd be sure to get paid. On small projects we have not followed any formal procedures.pWhat SCRUM does is give me a better, more thought out process for what the author calls these 30 day "sprints." I wish I had read this book earlier.pI picked up the book at a computer store and bought it reluctantly. I had heard good things about SCRUM, but the book looked too small and a quick read at the store didn't really turn me on that much.pBut after I sat down to read it at home, I was very pleased. It is a very well-underlined book now.pI agree with the XP folks on the productivity of 2 person programming teams and have found their "test first" approach to be very interesting. However, I do find that their design-on-the-fly approach to be flawed. When XP works, I think it is because it attracts good programmers... it's not the XP proto-typing approach itself. In fact, I think any methodology that relies on proto-typing wears out the goodwill of the client. The clients time is limited and they value it highly.pI will say that I found many interesting ideas in XP. And, I recommend that anyone interested in the subjec of this book, go to the XP websites and read their books (about 6 or so at this time).pSCRUM fits around XP just as well as the design-it-first approach. What I disagree with in SCRUM (and XP) is the use of open office areas for programming. I believe studies have actually been done on this and closed offices, no windows, white walls, lots of marker boards... wins out. Anything beyond trivial programming requires concentration. Noise and movement kills concentration.pThe graphics in the book really suck, as they look like they were printed out in some kind of old 320x200 screen resolution. But there is great depth to this book. It's a smaller sized book with small type (but still easy-to-read). So you actually get a lot of meat.pIn the future, I will refer to this great book often and recommend all software people read it.pJohn DunbarbrSugar Land, TX
SCRUM: Developers' salvation! January 14, 2003
James D. O'connell (Wellesley, MA United States)
This book packed an amazing amount of information into few pages. Most importantly, Ken Schwaber provided real-life examples of what worked for him and what didn't--and explained why. pSchwaber, the primary proponent of SCRUM, and Beedle have much experience with SCRUM and share it freely. Over the years, I've worked with numerous newfangled approaches to programming, including XP. Without SCRUM, however, we could not realize XP's potential. SCRUM is so deceptively simple, so logical, and so effective that one wonders why it hasn't been adopted more widely. In fact, I believe that as Schwaber continues to spread his message, SCRUM will be the wave of the future.pSchwaber's and Beedle's blueprint is a must read for every software developer. Once you try it, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it!
Scaling Up Agile Process Effectively August 29, 2002
Murray A. White (Chatham, NJ United States)
Scrum is the lever that can people-wise scale the development methods of XP and some of the other agile processes...pI used Scrum with a cross-functional team of 40+ people split into four smaller teams. It worked exceedingly well. We used some of the XP engineering disciplines as well, but what I love about Scrum is that it really doesn't have anything at all to do with software. You can use it for any task-oriented project that has ambiguity associated with the way the work should be done.pScrum is IMHO the relatively undiscovered gem of the Agile Methods family. Corporate IT professionals in particular ought to learn and apply Scrum...
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