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Title: Agile Software Development with SCRUM by Schwaber Ken, Mike Beedle, Ken Schwaber, Robert C. Martin ISBN: 0130676349 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 15 October, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $30.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.89
Rating: 5
Summary: Great book, wish I had it earlier
Comment: 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
Rating: 5
Summary: SCRUM: Developers' salvation!
Comment: 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.
Schwaber, 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.
Schwaber'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!
Rating: 5
Summary: Scaling Up Agile Process Effectively
Comment: Scrum is the lever that can people-wise scale the development methods of XP and some of the other agile processes...
I 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.
Scrum 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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Title: Agile Software Development by Alistair Cockburn ISBN: 0201699699 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 15 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $34.99 |
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Title: Agile Modeling: Effective Practices for Extreme Programming and the Unified Process by Scott W. Ambler, Ron Jeffries ISBN: 0471202827 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 22 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $34.99 |
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Title: Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices by Robert Cecil Martin ISBN: 0135974445 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 15 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $55.00 |
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Title: Test Driven Development: By Example by Kent Beck ISBN: 0321146530 Publisher: Addison Wesley Professional Pub. Date: 08 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.99 |
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Title: Agile Software Development Ecosystems by Jim Highsmith ISBN: 0201760436 Publisher: Addison Wesley Professional Pub. Date: 26 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $44.99 |
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