Customer Reviews

Scrum and XP from the Trenches (Enterprise Software Development)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've worked on agile teams since 2000, and have talked to many teams making the transition to agile. I've found that most people learn best through examples and hearing about other peoples' real life experiences. This book of "war stories from the trenches" is exactly what agile newbies need. I've read lots of books on agile development, and this is one of the most useful. It's superbly organized, written and illustrated. The author relates his team's experiences simply and clearly. Larger organizations with multiple teams will find valuable ideas on how to organize.

I started learning about Scrum just like anyone else, by reading Ken Schwaber's Scrum books and started to implement Scrum in my company. However, as you go along this process, you soon realize that you have more questions about Scrum than you started! You begin to hunt for info and answers to "how do others do this?" kind of questions. Thats when you read Henrik's book which is an account of how his team applied Scrum to their own group and how they solved their problems!

This book is an extremely well written (almost narrated) account of the issues they encountered and how they overcame those. You will immediately relate to those and will find yourselves saying ..."ahh thats it!" This book is very well written and is very easy and quick to read.

Because the book is a narrative of someone's efforts, it is also easily read by people who dont really know Scrum. I have given copies of this book to people who i want to get excited about Scrum, so that they themselves will realize that there are alternatives out there to doing software development, rather than the traditional waterfall process.

I am familiar with this book from the online PDF version from InfoQ. Like most who are new to Scrum -having come from other frameworks- I was filled with questions that started with "yeah but..." and "what about". None of them were answered satisfactorily by any Scrum book (even those by Schwaber or Cohn) until I read Henrik's.

I read this book in one sitting. The next day I began searching for a Scrum mentoring company, to move our own processes to Scrum, strongly supported by the senior team member who brought the book to my attention.

Why? Because we had urgent issues of mounting chaos. We were not advancing. It was obvious from Henrik's luminously clear descriptions of practice that Scrum could be a solution.

This book served us very well in setting up. Everything Henrik says is practical, and images leap to your mind from his words. You read him, and you know what to do.

This is not to say that we haven't had problems and questions. Starting Scrum is challenging. Henrik doesn't provide all the answers. But he is very helpful indeed, and this book is very good.

Henrik's "Scrum and XP from the Trenches" is a very thin book (120 pages) which can be read within half a day. It describes the experiences of Henrik when implementing Scrum in one organization with multiple teams.

First, you can decide to support the author and purchase the paper book, like I did, or you can download the free version from: http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/scrum-xp-from-the-trenches

Then, the book itself. It's structured fairly logically. It starts with looking at the Product Backlog, from there goes over all the Scrum meetings in chronological order. For every meeting, the author describes how he did it in his company, what other things he tried and what his conclusions were.

After all the Scrum meetings, the book dives in a couple separate topics, like combining Scrum with XP practices, having breaks between sprint and some other topics. It ends with scaling and distributed teams, common questions.

The book is basically a how-to book, though its very clear that it just gives an example, to make Scrum more concrete, but does recommend for everyone to look for "their Scrum" instead of blindly copying the suggestions in the books. This is also the books strength, it provides very concrete tips without saying "this is how it must be done".

I have different experiences than the author in some areas, which makes me frown sometimes, though I enjoyed Henriks explanations. They helped me gain a different perspective on some issues.

I was doubting between 3 and 4 stars for this book. 3 stars would be since the book doesn't offer more than it promises. It is an experience story of Henrik and didn't add much surprises or extra content. Also 3 stars since its so small. 4 stars would be because there is probably not any more concrete Scrum story than this one. If you are wondering about concrete implementation after reading Ken Schwaber's books, then this is the book for you! Also 4 starts because its small, which is also an advantage. There is no unnecessary blah blah in the book, Henrik tells how it is!

A recommended book for Scrum practitioners and people starting with Scrum to learn about "How Henrik did it!" :)

It's just one guy's story, and he says pretty clearly that your mileage may vary. But, if you're trying to get your mind around Scrum & XP and how it would look/feel to work on a team doing Scrum & XP, here's your chance.

I make it a point to give out this book for all new team members. Great, short and engaging reading with practical, real-life examples.

If you are new to Scrum, you need to read this book. It's not introductory, you have to learn before the basis of Scrum, but after that, take this book and read it completely. Even if you have been working with Scrum for some months. It teaches you how they use Scrum in their company, so you can get ideas for yours. Scrum is a list of recipes and the application of them depends highly on concrete organizations.

We started to use this book a year ago. Looking backward, it helps a lot to establish simple, effective and successful development process. Smart and humble. Highly recomended.

Scrum and XP from the Trenches describes the author's experiences in an open, succinct, informal manner. I found each chapter to be full of useful information, avoiding lengthy background information that many books on the subject cover. Many technical books, while useful, make the mistake of not giving enough examples of real implementations, which can make it difficult to see how it applies to your situation. The whole purpose of this book is to describe an actual project's approach and experiences, what worked and what did not.

Kniberg's writing style is informal, taking a conversational approach, which I found refreshing and somewhat humorous.