Agile Software Development with Scrum Author: Ken Schwaber | Language: English | ISBN:
0130676349 | Format: PDF
Agile Software Development with Scrum 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.
- Paperback: 158 pages
- Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (October 21, 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0130676349
- ISBN-13: 978-0130676344
- Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
- Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
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.
To start my review, I want to say that I am really, really surprised at the strength of the reviews so far.
Agile/Scrum is a very hot topic now and I really wanted to "freshen my game" so to speak and get up to speed on this apparently powerful concept. I wanted to augment the very limited training I got on Agile/Scrum and I got this book due to the many recommendations that said that this is, essentially, the mother of all Agile/Scrum books. Well, while it may be influential, I was disappointed. First off, it is very short (158 pages complete), especially considering it's $34 Amazon price tag. That wouldn't be so bad except that it is very repetitive - I think the book could have easily been captured in about 30 pages including diagrams (which were very lame, I might add). However, my biggest gripe is that it read like Agile/Scrum was the greatest thing to happen to SW development ever and would solve all problems. Granted, the authors are passionate about their subject, but for a book to be useful it should be reasonably complete and this book is far from that.
I believe that A/S can be a powerful tool, but it needs to be tempered. For instance, it says that the team must have complete freedom in choosing the backlog to work on in a scrum. That is nonsense. Marketing and other management (indeed, many other actors) must be involved and it must be a negotiated prioritization. In addition, one of the worst things that could happen to a software project is feature creep, and this book doesn't even touch on that. The creation and maintenance of a feature/task backlog could be an entire book in itself, and yet this book gives that only passing attention.
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