Summary:
A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile
Process
The Single-Source, Comprehensive Guide to Scrum for
All Team Members, Managers, and Executives
* *
If you want to use Scrum to develop innovative
products and services that delight your customers,
* Essential Scrum
* is the complete, single-source
reference you’ve been searching for. Leading Scrum
coach and trainer Kenny Rubin illuminates the values,
principles, and practices of Scrum, and describes
flexible, proven approaches that can help you implement
it far more effectively.
Whether you are new to Scrum or years into your use,
this book will introduce, clarify, and deepen your Scrum
knowledge at the team, product, and portfolio levels.
Drawing from Rubin’s experience helping hundreds of
organizations succeed with Scrum, this book provides
easy-to-digest descriptions enhanced by more than two
hundred illustrations based on an entirely new visual
icon language for describing Scrum’s roles,
artifacts, and activities.
* Essential Scrum
* will provide every team member,
manager, and executive with a common understanding of
Scrum, a shared vocabulary they can use in applying it,
and practical knowledge for deriving maximum value from
it.
“Agile coaches, you’re gonna be happy
with this book. Kenny Rubin has created an indispensable
resource for us. Do you have a manager that just
doesn’t ‘get it’? Hand them this book
and ask them to flip to Chapter 3 for a complete
explanation of how Scrum is less risky than plan-driven
management. It’s written just for them–in
management-speak. Want to help the team come to a common
understanding of Scrum? The visual icon language used
throughout this book will help you help them. These are
just two ways this book can aid you to coach Scrum teams.
Use it well.”
“One of the best, most comprehensive
descriptions of the core Scrum framework out there!
Essential Scrum is for anyone–new to or experienced
with Scrum–who’s interested in the most
important aspects of the process. Kenny does an excellent
job of distilling the key tenets of the Scrum framework
into a simple format with compelling visuals. As a Scrum
coach for many teams, I continually reference the
material for new ways to help teams that are learning and
practicing the framework. I’ve seen Scrum
continually misinterpreted and poorly implemented by big
companies and tool vendors for more than ten years.
Reading this book will help you get back to the basics
and focus on what’s important.”
“Corporate IT leadership, which has been slow
to embrace agile methods, would benefit immensely from
giving a copy of this book to all of their project and
delivery managers. Kenny Rubin has laid out in this book
all the pragmatic business case and process materials
needed for any corporate IT shop to successfully
implement Scrum.”
“Kenny’s extensive experience as a
consultant, trainer, and past managing director of the
Scrum Alliance is evident in this book. Along with
providing the basics and introduction to Scrum, this book
addresses the questions of masses–what happens to
project managers? Essential Scrum helps us understand the
big picture and guides how organization leaders can
support and be involved with their Scrum teams for
successful agile transformations.”
“If you’re new to agile development or to
Scrum, this book will give you a flying start. The
examples and descriptions are clear and vivid, and
you’ll often find yourself asking a question just
before the book addresses that very topic.”
“Kenny’s well-structured explanations
have a clarity to them that echoes the sensibilities of
Smalltalk–the development environment with which he
worked for years and from which both Scrum and Extreme
Programming were born. This book pulls together a
thorough set of agile management principles that really
hit the mark and will no doubt guide you toward a more
effective agile approach.”
“There are lots of books on Scrum these days,
but this book takes a new angle, a reality check for
software practitioners. Kenny uses real-world examples
and clear illustrations to show what makes a solid
foundation for successful agile development. Readers will
understand the value of building quality in, and the
reality that we can’t get everything right up
front; we must work incrementally and learn as we go. It
might have ‘Scrum’ in the title, but the book
leverages effective practices from the larger agile
universe to help managers and their teams succeed.”
“Kenny Rubin managed to write the book that I
want everyone associated with Scrum development to read!
He covers everything you’ll need to know about
Scrum and more!”
“I’ve reviewed a number of agile books in
the past few years, so the question of ‘Do we
really need another one?’ always comes to my mind.
In the case of Kenny’s book, I very much believe
the answer is ‘yes.’ Getting the benefit of
different, experienced perspectives on commonly
encountered and needed material is valuable. Kenny has
one of those valuable perspectives. One unique aspect of
the book is an interesting
‘iconography’–a new icon language for
Scrum and agile that Kenny has created. I believe
you’ll find value-added material in this book to
expand your ideas for how Scrum can be applied.”
“Anyone who has had Scrum training or has been
part of a Scrum team will find Essential Scrum to be a
great follow-up read. It dives into the details of how to
become more agile through implementing Scrum processes,
and it explains exactly how to break down complex
projects into manageable initiatives (or
‘sprints’). Kenny Rubin provides a wealth of
relevant case studies on what worked–or what
didn’t–in a variety of organizations. The
simple layout and businesslike graphics make it easy to
scan quickly and find specific topics. Any organization
that is seeking to evolve from a traditional waterfall
approach toward a more agile methodology will find
Essential Scrum a definitive guidebook for the
journey.”
“Developing software is hard. Adopting a new
way of working while in a project is even harder. This
book offers a bypass of many of the pitfalls and will
accelerate a team’s ability to produce business
value and become successful with Scrum. I wish I had this
kind of book when I started using Scrum.”
“I am convinced that Essential Scrum will
become the foundation reference for the next generation
of Scrum practitioners. Not only is it the most
comprehensive introduction to Scrum in publication today,
but it is also extremely well written and easy on the eye
with its fantastic new visual Scrum language. If that
isn’t enough, Kenny shares a range of his valuable
personal insights and experiences that we can all
certainly learn from.”
“Scrum is elegantly simple, yet deceptively
complex. In Essential Scrum, Kenny Rubin provides us with
a step-by-step guide to those complexities while
retaining the essential simplicity. Real-world
experiences coupled with enlightening illustrations make
Scrum come to life. For senior managers and team members
alike, this is a must-read book if you are starting or
considering whether to implement Scrum in your
organization. This will certainly be a book recommended
to my students.”
“Kenny unpacks a wealth of wisdom and knowledge
in Essential Scrum, providing valuable and comprehensive
insights to the practical application of agile/Scrum.
Whether you’re new to agile or are looking to reach
a greater maturity of continuous improvement in your
organization, this is a definitive handbook for your
toolbox.”
“Kenny Rubin continues to provide clarity and
insight into adopting agile in a pragmatic way. In one
hand he holds the formal or ideal Scrum definition and in
the other, the pragmatic application of it. He brings the
wisdom of his workshops and years of experience to the
table, and now for you to read in his latest book. If you
are about to start out on your agile adoption journey or
are seeking guidance midcourse, grab a copy.”
“A decade after publication of the first Scrum
books, it is time to combine the essential aspects of the
Scrum framework with the practical experiences and
approaches of the last ten years. Kenny Rubin does so in
a satisfying and nondogmatic way. The reader gets a
pragmatic look at Scrum and learns when and how to best
apply Scrum to achieve business benefits.”
“Adoption of Scrum is most successful when
everyone involved–even peripherally–with
product development has a good understanding of the
fundamentals. Essential Scrum provides an ideal overview
of both the big picture and the details in an accessible
style. It is sure to become a standard reference.”
Kenneth S. Rubin provides Scrum and Agile
training and coaching to help companies develop products more
effectively and economically. A Certified Scrum Trainer, he
has trained more than eighteen thousand people on Agile and
Scrum, Smalltalk development, managing object-oriented
projects, and transition management. He has coached hundreds
of companies, ranging from startups to the Fortune 10. Rubin
was the first Managing Director of the worldwide Scrum
Alliance, a nonprofit organization focused on successful
Scrum adoption. His diverse development roles have included
successful stints as Scrum product owner, ScrumMaster, and
developer. Rubin’s executive management roles have
included CEO, COO, VP of Engineering, VP of Product
Management, and VP of Professional Services. He is the author
of Succeeding with Objects (Addison-Wesley,
1995).
Review
–Lyssa Adkins, Coach of Agile Coaches, Agile
Coaching Institute; author, Coaching Agile Teams
–Joe Balistrieri, Process Development
Manager, Rockwell Automation
–John F. Bauer III, veteran of technical
solution delivery in large corporate IT shops
–Sameer S. Bendre CSM, PMP, Senior
Consultant, 3i Infotech Inc.
–Johannes Brodwall, Principal Solution
Architect, Steria Norway
–Rowan Bunning, Founder, Scrum WithStyle
–Lisa Crispin, coauthor, Agile Testing
–Martine Devos, European Scrum Pioneer and
Certified Scrum Trainer
–Scott Duncan, Agile/Scrum coach and
trainer
–Julia Frazier, product manager
–Geir Hedemark, Development Manager, Basefarm
AS
–Ilan Goldstein, Agile Solutions Manager,
Reed Elsevier
–John Hebley, Hebley & Associates
–David Luzquiños, Head of Agile
Enablement, Agile Coach, Betfair
–Cuan Mulligan, freelance coactive Agile
coach
–Yves Stalgies, PhD, Director IT,
www.etracker.com
–Kevin Tureski, Principal, Kevin Tureski
Consulting
About the Author