Nobody knows Scrum better than Ken Schwaber. This is a good read for launching new Scrum projects.

There's plenty of books on SCRUM - and finding the right one is a tough job.

This book is what you're looking for if you want a basic introduction and examples of applications - because there's plenty of case studies. SCRUM techniques are described and then discussed by resort to case studies, helping the lessons become more applicable to you.

The end result is a good SCRUM Manual for a more experienced Project Manager or IT professional. It's not a book that's pick-up-and-learn basics - its a book on theory, philosophy, and applications for people who have been there.

If you need a first SCRUM book, and want to get the most out of one book as possible, this is definitely a good choice. It's also an excellent book to have to bone up on theory and real-life applications. Finally, it's a definite "lender" that you'll pass around the office.

I generally like this book, and find it's content helpful. However, the examples chosen for the book focus on "broken" situations that seem to go beyond just project management and development methodology, and demonstrate that somehow magically, Scrum saves the day.

While I like the optimism and positive-thinking these examples encourage, it doesn't match reality. When I walk into a messy, complex situation, apply Scrum, and the world doesn't turn to pink roses, I'm left wondering if I did something wrong...I'm frustrated...I'm angry...I'm confused. The examples setup an expectation of outcomes that is too high to be reached generally, and I think some examples of failures and lessons learned would have rounded out this book much better.

In the real-world, "perfection is the enemy of success" and I think that's what I find missing from this book. All of the outcomes represent a perfect implementation of Scrum to solve the problem in the example.

I've been doing .NET programming for 5 and a half years now, and have practiced Agile in various degrees - all well short of what I believe Agile methodologies recommend. I have wanted to implement many more Agile methodologies, but not yet been in a manager/CTO position to ensure that these practices would be implemented.

Recently, I have been hired to do just that with a startup company. I turned to this book to help me understand the roles, meetings and project artifacts that I need to introduce to truly have an agile development environment (Scrum in particular) as our team grows.

This book really helped me to do just that, and also did it in a way that I found to be very intuitive. By relating past experiences, Ken showed me how using Scrum - in the various positions and responsibilites - moved projects forward in positive and very visible ways. I am still reading the later chapters, and still loving it.

Great introduction to Scrum, what situations are ripe for Scrum and examples of where it has been successful - I heartly recommend.

I've read this book short after taking Boris Gloger training of Certified ScrumMaster. It has numerous case studies of Ken's role as ScrumMaster in several companies. I don't know if it's a good book for someone that was not trained or studied scrum at all, but for someone that already has some small background on the topic it's a very good book.

I have enjoyed reading this book. The overview of Scrum is based on analysis of case studies and provides a complete vision on how to manage the software development using "art of possible". The book targets beginner as well as intermediate experienced Scrum practitioners. Being not new to the Scrum process I had several practical "How to?" questions. While answering some of them, some questions remain unanswered. The questions remaining were:
* would Scrum work when requirements are complex, and code is complex?
* Is Scrum the best method for developing complex products which comply to complex industry standards and regulations?
* What to do with defects encountered during the SPRINT? Write them into Backlog List? Etc.
* Usability of Scrum approach: The overlapping nature of Team member role implies that he analyzes requirements, architects and designs the software, tests the software, writes documentation. It is hard to find people with skills all-in-one.

I decided to take a ScrumMaster Certification Course from www.scrumalliance.org. Co-incidentally Ken Schwaber will be the speaker :D

This book is a sales pitch for agile project management, not a book on how to use it. There is chapter after chapter with the same format. 1) describe long list of problems company has, 2) implement agile 3) magic happens. There is a small amount of information on agile and how to use it.

As a newly appointed ScrumMaster I have chosen this title to gain overview of the methodology. The book indeed gave me basics. Examples and stories helped me to build up my own approach (and maybe to avoid some troubles). Now I run the scrum process and through its iterations I improve myself. However, it is not an in depth manual or how to" cookbook. Gaining proficiency is left on your own work experience or some of suggested training courses. For me the book was fine and I would recommend it. I am only in doubt whether the pricing is set appropriately.

This book provides a simple introduction to Scrum. Author briefly explains basic Scrum concepts based on real life case studies. However this book is not sufficient to start practicing Scrum in real projects. You will need at least a Scrum Master training course in order to fully understand Scrum techniques.

Coming from PMI PMP background I have noticed that the author does not understand the foundations of "traditional project management". For example on page 88 he draws a Network Diagram and refers to it as to Gantt chart... He also very often mentions PERT charts as one of his painful memories from waterfall projects.
Being such an expert in software project management Ken should know that there is no PERT chart, just the PERT technique (for estimating the duration of a task). PERT chart is a name of Network Diagram, wrongly introduced by Microsoft Project. It really strikes me how many people confuse MS Project with project management.

All in all, this book is worth reading if you need a brief introduction to Scrum.

This book did an amazing job of entertaining me and pumping me up to know more about scrum. Unfortunately, i haven't been able to practice any of this stuff at work becauase i'm not the project manager. I can't wait to learn more about scrum so i bought ken's other book "Agile software development using scrum" and am reading it now. It's much of the same material just more in depth and i'm loving it as well.

5 stars for the book! i'll let you all know how the methodology is after i find out!

From Product backlog to sprint review, you see how scrum is implemented and how each Chicken plays their role to it's fullest in this book!

This is a great book on Scrum. In a light, enjoyable series of anecdotes about real-world projects, it succeeds in communicating the deeper principles rather than just the surface-level practices.

I am completely satisfied with the shipment and quality of the book. I would absolutely go back to this seller, if he has what I need.

This book is one of good agile development book.
It provides the idea to implement agile process in our team.

When co-workers see this book on my office shelf, I inevitably get one of two reactions. The most common one is "Do you really want to take advice on project management from Microsoft?" The answer is probably not, but this book was written by the co-creator of SCRUM, and published by Microsoft press, so it's not exactly a recipe-book from Redmond.

The second reaction I get is "I was at a company/on a project/reported to a boss who used SCRUM and it worked really well." After reading several books on the subject and applying the lessons, I can see why. SCRUM has been the most useful project management method I've tried so far on my software development projects.

Since the goal of traditional project management is to standardize a known process to produce a required result, it has always had problems when applied to the creative process of producing software. This problem is only multiplied when the software to be produced is web based and consumer oriented, throwing a multitude of marketing and usability issues into the mix, making the desired end product as uncertain as the process. SCRUM is an ingenious solution to this problem; instead of trying fruitlessly to predict the future in the form of a project schedule, SCRUM emphasizes development as a continuous process that can be controlled using the same empirical feedback mechanisms of visibility, feedback, and adaptation that are already used to good effect in the manufacturing industry.

In this view, the team is a machine that constantly produces features as output. That output is inspected by end users, who then provide feedback, which is then incorporated into the next round of development. The book details the organizational roles and responsibilities needed to set up this machine and the processes to keep it running.

I found this book to be considerably more reader friendly than the original book by Schwaber detailing SCRUM. (Agile Software Development with SCRUM The emphasis on case studies rather than theoretical discussions certainly helps keep the discussion grounded, but more than that the text is more coherent and better written. Whether this is the effect of more experience or a better editor is hard to tell.

The three roles of SCRUM are the Product Owner, the Scrum Master, and the Team. The first two are single person managerial roles that are responsible for requirements definition and maintaining the process. The Team, however, consists of everyone who is assigned to do work exclusively for the project, and in Schwaber's conception it is to be completely self-managed. Now that I have gained some experience using SCRUM, I have to say that this is both the most challenging aspect of the process.

SCRUM depends on the Team effectively taking control of the product and committing themselves to delivering shippable features on a regular basis. To successfully introduce SCRUM engineers and other creative people have to be convinced that not only do they have the power to make decisions, but that it will be worth their time and effort to do so. Much of the process documented here- 30 day sprints, defined times for feedback, and so on- seem to exist to help insulate the team from those who would interfere with their control. But getting a team to the point where it is functioning at such a high level requires more than just giving an assignment. It requires either a fortuitious mix of personalities and culture, or time and nurturing. Know which one you are signing up for before you start.

There is a lot of other good advice in here as well, and I found it very helpful in taking the first steps towards a more agile approach to project management.

I bought this after hearing Scott Hansleman talk about it on his scrum podcast at [...]. I figure Scott seems to have had great success with Scrum at his place of work ([...]so any book he recommended on the topic ought to be solid. Indeed it is!

The book's laid out in a series of stories which illustrate responsibilities and typical problems to overcome for the Scrum roles of Product Owner, ScrumMaster, and Team. The stories are short, concise, and followed up by Lessons Learned which cover salient highlights for the various points made in the section. Throughout the book runs Schwaber's theme of how one can use Scrum to solve any number of problems and increase the productivity of their development work.

What's really nice about the book is that there are stories of failures as well as successes. Software development is rarely all roses, so it's nice to see a couple examples where things didn't work -- and a solid analysis of what went wrong in those cases.

On the flipside, I'd have liked a bit more detail on constructing the sprint and product backlogs. I realize that traipses somewhat over into the realm of software estimation, but more fleshing out would have been helpful. However, there's a great example of scaling Scrum and rolling up numerous product backlogs from lower levels in to a larger backlog for a major system, so that's quite beneficial.

The book's terrifically well-written, is an easy read, and is formatted such that you're able to quickly pick up the important bits of Scrum. It's a terrific read for anyone looking to bring some sensible, tailorable processes to their software development efforts.

The book is very easy to understand and goes beyond the basic rules of Scrum by providing examples of (1) how Scrum works on real projects and (2) how ScrumMasters and Teams can successfully adapt Scrum to handle those unique characteristics that make every software development project different.

I look forward to being able to apply what I've learned on a Scrum project!

Ken uses this book as the guide for his two day Scrum Master Training session. I highly recommend both the book and the class. We've been using the Agile methodology for the past two years, the class/book enabled us to take the methodology to the next level

I found this book to be an excellent introduction to the subject, however it was sparce on details and practical application. There were a lot of the author's experieces which I thought were useful dos and don'ts. I really expected more details on how to implement Scrum and was disappointed at the lack of real details.

This is a good account of Scrum practices as used "for real" in several case studies, plus some general evangelism and two very useful appendices on Scrum rules and terminology definitions.

I do think it has become somewhat hard for Schwaber to imagine what it is like NOT to be familar with Scrum, as it is so deeply embedded in his thinking and practice! For instance, he uses the term "sashimi" early on without bothering to define it in Scrum terms - that comes later (Hence the 4 stars instead of 5. Would really like to give 4 1/2.)

His other book "Agile Software Development with SCRUM" has more in-depth coverage of the subject. It includes a fuller account of the essential difference between defined and empirical processes which is at the heart of Scrum and other agile methods. In this one, he does include the same reference to the (hard to find!) industrial engineering textbook that explains this, but in a more offhand way - just quoting a key paragraph a couple of times.

Perhaps the best sequence of reading depends on your role. If, like me, you are a developer, the first book is, I think, more rewarding for in-depth study and relationship to Agile principles in general, while this one is a good follow-up on implementation realities. For a manager wondering whether Scrum deserves exploring, this book will give a strong (positive) answer to that question, and can be followed by more in-depth study with the other book.

Excellent book. It presents Scrum in real-world environments. It talks about imperfect real-world situations and constantly *adapting* - and how Scrum is a top-notch tool to produce results. One of the great benefits of Scrum is the CONFIDENCE it gives developers and product owners - because real results are produced every 30 days. Anyway, this book is an excellent teaching tool because it shows how Scrum can help in the kinds of imperfect projects and environments we have all experienced. Highly recommended.

... you must not be taking Scrum very seriously.-)

For what it's worth: I read this book before I read the first book ("Agile Software Development with SCRUM"). I didn't have any trouble reading them in that order. I found this book slightly more helpful than the first. It seemed to cover the mechanics of Scrum in more detail. More importantly, it help me understand how to fit Scrum into the context of the real world.

The Scrum principle is simple. It starts with some common observations: that projects generally succeed when someone sidesteps the formal process and gets the job done anyway, and that big teams spend more time tripping over each other than typing code. Scrum starts with the radical idea of announcing that we're going to do what we were going to anyway, then mixing in big handfuls of eXtreme Programming.

This is a good second book. It attends less to the basics of running the team and working with the customers and corporate surroundings, although Schwaber does present all those basics. Instead, the focus is on case studies, especially ones that look like bad matches to Scrum management style. I like that emphasis: typical methodology books assume perfect compliance with fragile or rare prerequisite assumptions, then wash their hands of any circumstance that doesn't meet their delicate needs. This is a good bit more realistic - it's about the whole concept of cut-and-fit to get the most out of Scrum despite unfavorable situations and stakeholders.

Late in the book, Schwaber makes the point that people will do whatever they're rewarded for. However obvious this sounds, it's an ongoing source of corporate inanity. Suppose that percent of the code covered in testing is a major goal: programmers will dutifully eliminate handling of exceptional conditions or invalid preconditions for which tests are hard to generate (NOT an improvement). Suppose reduced development time is rewarded: watch testing time plummet and bug counts soar. I agree that progress must be measurable, and agree at the top of my lungs that the wrong measurements are worse than none at all.

Still, one theme comes through again and again: that, when the going gets weird, typical practitioners will rapidly find themselves in way over their heads. He, with more experience than any other Scrumster around, exerts the limits of his creativity to get past problems of fairly ordinary kinds (like intrasigent management). It's certainly a good recommendation for his consulting services. It's just not a message that a novice wants to hear. I have the strongest reservations about his fondness for bullpen office environments, as well.

There's good to be had here, I'm sure, but I'd have to see Scrum in action before I could really internalize the way it's meant to work.

//wiredweird

PS: It's just an amusing typo, not a deliberate act that "the ... team was going to use Scum [sic]," p.64

It's very hard to part with the practices accepted for generations. Many companies talk about a new, better way of a project planning, developments' ehgagement and other agile techniques. When trying to apply these techniques, these companies immediately hit the wall of a management looking for traditional ways they've been using for life and with a success (at least, in their estimate). This book makes a Scrum approach very clear and very compelling. You can read chapters from this book to your manager (by the way, I'm a manager myself) and move him/her, step-by-step, to the better understanding how a new approach works.
Books on a market about an Extreme Programming left me with much less clarity and didn't prove compelling to my CIO. This book does an excellent job of describing a total approach and all small details you need to implement Scrum, as an excellent form of agile development.
I strongly recommend this book to everybody who is tired of products "dead on arrival" and project plans (thanks, Billy, for an outstanding piece of bureaucracy - Microsoft Project) which never work as planned.

This book, coupled with Schwaber and Beedle's other Scrum book, are a complimentary package. This book in particular? Common sense. Immediate application.

This is a book you can pass around to anyone involved anywhere around software solution delivery streams - they read it, and get it. It provides concept explanations, real world examples and suggestive commentary .. like walking into a swimming pool on a gradient slope. My perception of the problem to solve with this book? What is Scrum and why do I care? And .. if I entertain Scrum .. what does that look like? Schwaber's book tells you about it, what it is, who's doing it, challenges, etc. Look at this book as a doorway into new space and practice.

I just plain encourage the purchase of and pass this book out to others. Quick read. Concepts are face value. Cracks the door open to Agile space implementations, esp. for those unfamiliar with anything other than standard linear waterfall stuff.

Let's just start this out by saying I am not a project manager, I am a SQL Server architect and developer. So this review should be taken as coming from such a person and not a person who has managed numerous successful project. In fact quite the opposite. I have been on numerous chaotic, insane projects. It is from this perspective that I review the book, and the methodology given forthwith.

This is a great idea, and a great concept. What it is not, however, is a methodology that you cherry-pick the parts you like and leave the rest. Only choosing to implement some of the Scrum methodology will take your previously chaotic project lifecycle and choke the life out of your employees.

In a nutshell, projects are broken up into thirty day, self enclosed cycles. Development, implementation, documentation, and testing done. Testing, that oft forgotten step in the development process. The teams are empowered to manage themselves, with only a coach along to make sure the rules are folled. One of the scrum "rules" is that you have to actually test the code in the 30 day window (all of the rules are presented in an appendix.) Customers are involved at the beginning and end, deciding what features to implement, and then implementation happens. Obviously it is more complex than that, but not by much.

Will it work? I believe so, given the right corporate involvement, customer buy in, the right team, and a good deal of team self-discipline. Developers will eventually love it, and should have no problems following the rules once they understand them. The "customer" may have the hardest time, as they can only apply a heavy hand to direct development monthly, rather than daily. On the other hand, with many classic projects, the problem was that design was done for months, then development for months, then testing and documentation done by the poor unwitting users!

The book is very well written. I like how he introduces the team roles, then gives good and bad examples of how they have been done on past projects. Very reasonable examples are presented that feel very genuine and real, that I as a developer for over twelve years could eaisly relate to. It isn't perfect, and there are places where the author seems almost too eager to believe that Scrum is the fix to all of the world's problems. Only one place does he seem negative, that having to do with fixed bid, fixed time contracts. I also feel that the level of developers you will need to make this work will have to be above average. Not to say it won't work without world class developers, but their motivation will need to be derived from doing a good job, not at being told what to do and just mindlessly doing it.

Reading this book won't turn you into a ScrumMaster- only experience with a few projects will do that- but this book really has all the information you need to start to implement the Scrum agile methodology in your company or department.

I've been trained in two seperate PMI-certified methodologies, and both have been complete failures in my organizations. The response, of course, has been to bring in a third methodology. The real reason for the failures has been that traditional project managment as it is usually practiced is designed to fail. It encourages the creation of fictions that live a seperate existence form the actual project, with due dates dictated from above, and project schedules fudged to meet due dates rather than actual resources. In my own organization, we had a typical example of what happens in traditional "waterfall" development: A massive project to replace our main administrative system was ticking towards a June delivery (according to the detailed MS Project charts) and then, 30 days prior to delivery, it was announced that the delivery date had been pushed back an entire year!

This can't happen with Scrum. Scrum reflects what's really happening in a project, and it encourages incremental development- prioritizing requirements, and delivering them in their order of need, instead of trying to deliver a complete project with every single componant at a certain date. It's also one of the least onerous of methodologies. As a Scrum Master friend notes, "It's the simplest methodology you can implement that will actually deliver results".

It does requrie some changes in how things are done in the traditional organizations. Scrum project managers don't assign tasks and track performance on each task; instead, they assign goals and the programmers report on progress and any difficulties they many encounter. There's a daily stand-up review to report on progress and roadblocks and monthly reviews to reprioritize and review changes in scope. The result is that the project continually is driven by the needs of the customer as they evolve, and not by arbitrary goals in the distant future.

If I've piqued your interest in Scrum at all, get a copy of this book. Better yet, order copies for all your team members, too.

The book was an easy read and provided a fair but light treatment of Scrum. The numerous examples provide a good illustration of some of the key concepts of the method and help in better understanding implementation issues and lessons learned. This being said, a complete understanding of Scrum requires additional reading above and beyond this book, and most importantly a good solid (if not many) attempt at applying it in the real world. For individuals interested in Scrum, I would also recommend a very active discussion group to which the book's author and many other Scrum aficionados contribute regularly: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scrumdevelopment/

This book helped me understand more details about how to implement Scrum. The rules of Scrum are simple. Apply these rules in your context can be tricky. I found that the case studies that thread throughout the book really helped me to understand some of the nuances of the Scrum process. And if you want a checklist, there is a appendix that summarizes the rules of Scrum.

This is a great book if you want to learn about Scrum as a project management tool, or if you have been trying to use Scrum and want a chance to renew your understanding.

Ken Schwaber, the co-founder of Scrum, presents a text of case studies based on his experience helping teams implement Scrum.

Each case is a mini-retrospective focusing on topics such as planning a scrum project, project reporting, team formation, and team member responsibilites. Ken presents the situation, the application of a scrum practice, the lessons learned, and a conclusion. The chapters can be browsed and read out of order.

For those not familiar with Scrum, there is a useful appendix which covers the rules and practices of Scrum.

For those who learn through case studies, I highly recommend this book.

If you have read any of Dale Carnegie's books you will see that all you are getting is a series of anecdotes. It takes a while to get to the essence of the book, where a few pages could have done that in the upfront chapters, then the gumpf could have filled the rest. If you think about it, you are a manager with little time who wants to implement the system, analogous to the scrum master holding the 15 minute daily meeting: I feel the book should have been written like that - have the chapter overview, have the introductory facts ie rules then do the work.

Our organization recently implemented Scrum, and although the
Beedle/Schwaber book was great to get us off the ground on Scrum
theory, we immediately had many questions once we actually tried to implement it in real life projects. I agree with the notion that Scrum is conceptually easy to understand, but actually quite complex to implement correctly. The scrum forum has been helpful, but we really needed a cohesive reference of situational problems. The APMWS book really hit the nail on the head and delivered what we needed the most: a practical guide to Scrum with anecdotes and "what happens if..." situations from real world Scrum implementations. This came just in time for us, and we are feeling more confident for our upcoming certification class.

The appendices in the back are also very helpful. The "Rules"
appendix is perfect as a quick introduction to Scrum for new Team
members and Product Owners. It's actually quite detailed for being such a short appendix.

Also, for newbies the three main Roles are very nicely explained. We had some misconceptions that were immediately addressed by this book.

Anyway, from a Scrum newbie that is faced with implementation issues, thanks to Ken for putting together a real world implementation guide.

Agile Project Management with Scrum is a wonderful book. The author, Ken Schwaber (one of the originators of the Scrum process), informs us through case studies and anecdotes. If you like learning by example, this book is for you. Scrum is quite likely the best starting point for most companies interested in pursuing an agile development process. The readability and excellent anecdotes in this book make it a fantastic starting point for any journey into agile development.

I loved seeing how Schwaber applied Scrum in many varying situations. Rather than introducing each case study one at a time, the book is organized around key areas. Multiple anecdotes are given for each key area. Throughout each chapter, Schwaber brings the anecdotes together in Lessons Learned sections and the chapters conclude by helping point out the conclusions we learn to draw from the anecdotes.

I appreciated that Schwaber was not shy about mentioning projects that didn't go perfectly-including one he got fired from for being too zealous in his role of sheepdog guarding his flock of developers.

Although this book is ostensibly about software development, Scrum has its roots in general new product development and can (and has been) applied to a wide variety of development projects. A problem with a process like Scrum is that it is best learned by "feeling it" rather than being told about it. There are many subtle differences between Scrum and a more command-and-control management process. Learning Scrum by reading a book filled with examples like this is the best way to get the feel for how to use it on your own projects.