Books by author: Mike Beedle

Scrum is one of the current buzzwords in software development. It's part of a family of "Agile" processes (another buzzword) that aims to make software development more productive and predictable.

Here's a bit of context: I lead a small team of developers in an Advanced Development group at my company. We build proof-of-concept prototypes, develop novel algorithms, and try to transition our work smoothly to Product Development groups. In an environment like ours, Agile processes are crucial. We can't specify all of the requirements of our prototypes and algorithms ahead of time; our requirements change and evolve a lot over time as we better understand the problems we're trying to solve. However, we are accountable for delivering our work-product to other teams. Without some structure to our process, it's hard for us to work as a team, and it's hard for us to meet our deadlines.

Scrum is a process that should be good for managing projects like those that I'm involved in. It would take more space to describe the way Scrum works than I'm willing to give it here, but I will say that having read this book I'm sufficiently impressed with the process to implement many of its components with my team (we will have fixed-duration Sprints with clear goals; we will maintain Product and Sprint backlog lists; and we will have Daily Scrum meetings). Happily, it looks like a couple of minor modifications will make my pyGTD tool perfect for managing the task and requirement backlog lists that are part of the core process.

As a process, Scrum looks very useful. As a book, Agile Software Development with Scrum is a mixed bag. The information is there, but the structure of the book is a mess and the writing isn't great. The book needs to be organized more coherently, with optional material and digressions relegated to appendices, and with improved (more terse!) summaries of the components and benefits of Scrum.