A practical field guide to the practice of scrum, an agile software project management methodology.
The Elements of Scrum
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Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Chris Sims is a Certified Scrum Trainer and agile coach who has been helping teams improve their happiness and productivity since the turn of the century. He has made a living in roles such as: scrum master, product owner, engineering manager, C++ developer, musician, and auto mechanic. Chris is the founder of Agile Learning Labs and a frequent presenter at agile conferences. Hillary Louise Johnson is an author and former business journalist who has written on innovation, technology and pop culture for Inc Magazine and the Los Angeles Times. As an intellectual property consultant she has drafted numerous technology patents. She has been editor-in-chief of several print and online publications and is now Agile Learning Labs’ creative director.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By Joel
Format:Paperback
EoS is a great mix of approachable writing, great anecdotes and simple pictures, both the ones drawn into the book and the pictures the words easily formed in my head. The nearly 200 pages flew by quickly while giving me some excellent new perspectives on the use of Scrum. For readability I found it outstanding.
Elements is not a complete "how to" book of Scrum, that's not the goal of the book. It's laid out a lot like a training cours, and will give any reader a strong foundation in the basics of Scrum. Even though I've taken scrum master certification and have been an active agilest for some time now, I still came away from this book with a deeper knowledge of Scrum's core fundamentals. That says a lot for a $30 book, that it can still teach you some new ideas after taking a two day training class.
The final positive point I can give it is where it will live, now that I've read it. EoS will find a place on my ready reference shelf in my office cube. When I need to check something on Scrum, it's only an arms length away and finding information in it is google easy.
Joel Bancroft-Connors , PMP
Elements is not a complete "how to" book of Scrum, that's not the goal of the book. It's laid out a lot like a training cours, and will give any reader a strong foundation in the basics of Scrum. Even though I've taken scrum master certification and have been an active agilest for some time now, I still came away from this book with a deeper knowledge of Scrum's core fundamentals. That says a lot for a $30 book, that it can still teach you some new ideas after taking a two day training class.
The final positive point I can give it is where it will live, now that I've read it. EoS will find a place on my ready reference shelf in my office cube. When I need to check something on Scrum, it's only an arms length away and finding information in it is google easy.
Joel Bancroft-Connors , PMP
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
This is the second book I've "borrowed" from the Amazon Kindle loaning library, and it will be the second book I'll be buying -- just as soon as I can figure out if I want it in paper or digital format.
PROS:
o The book wisely starts off by telling a week in the life of a scrum team. I say wisely, because anyone with any software development experience at all will immediately get a clear, "bird's eye view" of the overall scrum framework from this opening story, and that perspective will make the reading of the rest of the book go quickly.
o Next the book reviews the traditional "Waterfall" development cycle which is another smart move. Not only does reading about the methodology I learned in college help establish the authors' credibility for me, they explain waterfall with a sense of fairness -- so you don't walk away feeling like you are about to read the one-sided propaganda of some agile fan-boys.
o As the book unfolds, you get the sense that the authors definitely have a ton of real world experience, and that you are getting something much more useful than scrum theory.
o The book is logically organized, making learning scrum a breeze.
o The authors didn't seem to be worried about page count, but instead taught scrum efficiently and effectively without extra words, war stories or fluff.
o The authors allow some personality to flow on to the pages, making the book a fun read.
CONS:
o I wish the authors would have done a bit more to define scrum-specific terminology at the beginning of the book, or at least provided a glossary at the back of the book so we could look up the terms as we come upon them -- particularly if we are coming upon them again and again.
o Not all the formatting looks right on the kindle. None of it is bad, just off at times.
o The pictures are so tiny on the kindle, that some are borderline unusable.
Now that I've written this review, I think I'll buy this in kindle format so that the highlighting I did as I read the book (yes, I knew it was a "borrowed" book, but I just couldn't resist) will transfer to my purchased copy.
I can see me wanting to refer back to this book again and again, and it will just be handy to have access to the book and my markings from my Android phone, iPad, Kindle Fire -- whichever gadget happens to be handy when I need to look something up.
PROS:
o The book wisely starts off by telling a week in the life of a scrum team. I say wisely, because anyone with any software development experience at all will immediately get a clear, "bird's eye view" of the overall scrum framework from this opening story, and that perspective will make the reading of the rest of the book go quickly.
o Next the book reviews the traditional "Waterfall" development cycle which is another smart move. Not only does reading about the methodology I learned in college help establish the authors' credibility for me, they explain waterfall with a sense of fairness -- so you don't walk away feeling like you are about to read the one-sided propaganda of some agile fan-boys.
o As the book unfolds, you get the sense that the authors definitely have a ton of real world experience, and that you are getting something much more useful than scrum theory.
o The book is logically organized, making learning scrum a breeze.
o The authors didn't seem to be worried about page count, but instead taught scrum efficiently and effectively without extra words, war stories or fluff.
o The authors allow some personality to flow on to the pages, making the book a fun read.
CONS:
o I wish the authors would have done a bit more to define scrum-specific terminology at the beginning of the book, or at least provided a glossary at the back of the book so we could look up the terms as we come upon them -- particularly if we are coming upon them again and again.
o Not all the formatting looks right on the kindle. None of it is bad, just off at times.
o The pictures are so tiny on the kindle, that some are borderline unusable.
Now that I've written this review, I think I'll buy this in kindle format so that the highlighting I did as I read the book (yes, I knew it was a "borrowed" book, but I just couldn't resist) will transfer to my purchased copy.
I can see me wanting to refer back to this book again and again, and it will just be handy to have access to the book and my markings from my Android phone, iPad, Kindle Fire -- whichever gadget happens to be handy when I need to look something up.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Dave Moran
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
If you want to understand the essentials of Agile development and Scrum, The Elements of Scrum by Chris Sims and Hillary Louise Johnson is a must read. The book itself doesn't talk about Agile development in pure theoretical terms, it provides insight on how Scrum teams function by using examples and clear explanations.
The Elements of Scrum walks you through a Scrum team's inner workings, including planning and executing a sprint, daily scrum (stand-up) meetings, sprint reviews, and the retrospective. The book provides in-depth coverage of key Scrum artifacts such as the product and sprint backlogs, information radiators like the sprint and release charts, the task board, the definition of done, user stories and acceptance criteria. Chris and Hillary even cover a topic you don't read much about: terminating a sprint.
The Elements of Scrum really shines as it walks you through the ins and outs of estimating and planning. I particularly enjoyed the example of "Agile Islands," as it provides an excellent basis for understanding Scrum's use of relative sizing versus time estimates. Chris and Hillary explain why relative sizing works, pointing out that, "While we are bad at absolute sizing, we are good at relative sizing."
They follow up to explain how relative sizing is applied:
"The trick is to use a two-step process. First, assign relative sizes to all of the work items. The size indicates how much work there is to do. Second, do a couple of work items and measure how long they actually take. Armed with this measured amount, the relative sizes assigned to all of the other items can now be used to provide the desired predictability of schedule."
And if you've ever wondered why Agile development uses sizing numbers in the Fibonacci sequence, The Elements of Scrum explains this as well: "...the Fibonacci sequence, when used to represent `sizes,' increase at about the same rate at which humans are able to easily perceive differences. Just as anyone can tell a one-story house from a two-story house at a glance, anyone can tell 21 story building from a 34 story building."
Since the book relies on examples of actual experiences to illustrate how Scrum works in practice, it naturally gives an inside look at The Team Estimation Game and using techniques such as planning poker. The book closes discussing a variety of supporting practices, such as release planning, the use of personas, story mapping, refactoring, pair programming and test-driven development.
If you are looking for a book that provides an "inside look" at how Scrum teams plan and operate, I highly recommend The Elements of Scrum .
The Elements of Scrum walks you through a Scrum team's inner workings, including planning and executing a sprint, daily scrum (stand-up) meetings, sprint reviews, and the retrospective. The book provides in-depth coverage of key Scrum artifacts such as the product and sprint backlogs, information radiators like the sprint and release charts, the task board, the definition of done, user stories and acceptance criteria. Chris and Hillary even cover a topic you don't read much about: terminating a sprint.
The Elements of Scrum really shines as it walks you through the ins and outs of estimating and planning. I particularly enjoyed the example of "Agile Islands," as it provides an excellent basis for understanding Scrum's use of relative sizing versus time estimates. Chris and Hillary explain why relative sizing works, pointing out that, "While we are bad at absolute sizing, we are good at relative sizing."
They follow up to explain how relative sizing is applied:
"The trick is to use a two-step process. First, assign relative sizes to all of the work items. The size indicates how much work there is to do. Second, do a couple of work items and measure how long they actually take. Armed with this measured amount, the relative sizes assigned to all of the other items can now be used to provide the desired predictability of schedule."
And if you've ever wondered why Agile development uses sizing numbers in the Fibonacci sequence, The Elements of Scrum explains this as well: "...the Fibonacci sequence, when used to represent `sizes,' increase at about the same rate at which humans are able to easily perceive differences. Just as anyone can tell a one-story house from a two-story house at a glance, anyone can tell 21 story building from a 34 story building."
Since the book relies on examples of actual experiences to illustrate how Scrum works in practice, it naturally gives an inside look at The Team Estimation Game and using techniques such as planning poker. The book closes discussing a variety of supporting practices, such as release planning, the use of personas, story mapping, refactoring, pair programming and test-driven development.
If you are looking for a book that provides an "inside look" at how Scrum teams plan and operate, I highly recommend The Elements of Scrum .
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clearly explained
First of all, this is not a reference book to use like using a dictionary. They made easy to assimilate the contents of the book, giving stories and examples with reasons. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Marco Lucio
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very well written
Love this book. It is part of my Agile class in UCLA.
The book is well written, easy to understand and fun to read.
The book is well written, easy to understand and fun to read.
Published 1 month ago by Plinio
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ideal for Beginners
This book is ideal for those just getting started with agile. If you find yourself consistently surrounded by developer driven conversation then this is the perfect primer for you... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Colin Hagan
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great overview of an elusive project management technique
This book may not be the grand compendium of scrum, but indeed that is not what it sets out to become! Read more
Published 2 months ago by justin
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Pragmatic Intro to Scrum
At a time when many books on Scrum tend to encapsulate Scrum and provide it to the reader in terms of hard rules to follow (which is the antithesis of Scrum), the Elements of Scrum... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Charathram Ranganathan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent read
Great for scrum newbies. We were having discussions whether some of our processes are indeed scrum and this made most concepts clear. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Ajith Ranabahu
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Intro to Scrum
This book is descriptive. There are no case studies, just a clear description of what exactly scrum is and what it isn't.
It is well written and clear and concise.
It is well written and clear and concise.
Published 4 months ago by cargo
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very Helpful
I bought this to help me re-learn from a beginners point of view the basics of the SCRUM Framework so that I could more easily teach my web team who was new to the ideas. Read more
Published 5 months ago by R. Brown
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Mid-Size Book
This is the right length book for new scrum masters and product owners.
The book has enough detaill to start to make you feel like an srcum insider.
The book has enough detaill to start to make you feel like an srcum insider.
Published 5 months ago by Erik J. Newton
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fairly concise review of Scrum
This was just what I needed to get me started. I've been asked to take on the role of Scrum Master, and this book was recommended as a good starting place. Read more
Published 5 months ago by David W. Jones
