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

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Agile development methods are key to the future of flexible software systems. Scrum is one of the vanguards of the new way to buy and manage software development when business conditions are changing. This book distills both the theory and practice and is essential reading for anyone who needs to cope with software in a volatile world." — Martin Fowler, industry consultant and CTO, ThoughtWorks

"Most executives today are not happy with their organization's ability to deliver systems at reasonable cost and timeframes. Yet, if pressed, they will admit that they don't think their software developers are not competent. If it's not the engineers, then what is it that prevents fast development at reasonable cost? Scrum gives the answer to the question and the solution to the problem. — Alan Buffington, industry consultant, former Present, Fidelity Systems Company

Product Description

eXtreme Programming is an ideal many software shops would love to reach, but with the constant pressures to produce software quickly, they cannot actually implement it. The Agile software process allows a company to implement eXtreme Programming quickly and immediately-and to begin producing software incrementally in as little as 30 days! Implementing eXtreme Programming is easier said than done. The process can be time consuming and actually slow down current software projects that are in process. This book shows readers how to use SCRUM, an Agile software development process, to quickly and seamlessly implement XP in their shop-while still producing actual software. Using SCRUM and the Agile process can virtually eliminate all downtime during an XP implementation.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 158 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; illustrated edition edition (October 21, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130676349
• ISBN-13: 978-0130676344
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,022 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, wish I had it earlier, April 1, 2003

By	John C. Dunbar (Sugar Land, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

What'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.

SCRUM 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.

In 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.

On 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.

What 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.

I 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.

But after I sat down to read it at home, I was very pleased. It is a very well-underlined book now.

I 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.

I 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).

SCRUM 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.

The 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.

In the future, I will refer to this great book often and recommend all software people read it.

John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for learning how to complete projects faster/better, March 29, 2002

By	Michael Cohn "agile developer" (Lafayette, CO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Everybody loves this book, but..., April 30, 2005

By	Corey Thompson "Corey Thompson" (Minneapolis, MN United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

...the book itself isn't really that great. SCRUM has some very interesting ideas about managing a software project, but the book is just OK. I seem to remember him saying that "it was done quickly, just in time for a conference" on his blog at one point. However, if you're going to try some SCRUM, you'll want to read this.

Additionally, you'll need this book if you're going to read his other SCRUM book (Agile Project Management w/ SCRUM) from Microsoft Press, because you'll want the background from this book for that one.

One thing that is not covered in this book is how you get management approval when you have a "process by not having a process," or how SCRUM might scale to more that 7-11 people (other than a SCRUM of SCRUMs.)