Archive for October, 2008
Radar (retrospectives, distributed Scrum)
Scrum = random?
A real life example, during a work interview:
“Me: So, Scrum is an empirical method of managing projects.
xpto: So, it’s something random, right?”
Way wrong. There is a huge difference between: random and empirical.
Let’s start with the first one: the empirical method which is in the base of Scrum is not random - far from it. If you prefer, substitute the term “empirical” by “adaptative” - because that’s what’s done in continuous feedback cycles in Scrum: Inspect, Adapt, Do, Repeat, etc.
In Scrum, you have 3 cycles of feedback:
- every 24 hours, at the Scrum Daily Meeting
- every Sprint (2 to 4 weeks, in average), at the Sprint Review
- every Release (several Sprints)
So, it’s far from random. In fact, is much more reliable than the Waterfall methodology. Waterfall is a predicitive model - i.e., you pretend you have a magic crystal ball, in which you predict everything which is going to happen during the project(!). That sounds a lot more like random wishful thinking, IMHO.
To sum it up, in Scrum, you have an empirical/adaptive methodology instead of a predicitive one.
Q&A - Which books I need to read in order to know how Scrum works?
I’ve got another interesting question from Artur Martins:
“Which books I need to read in order to know how Scrum works?”
Nowadays, there are tons of books regarding Scrum. When I started to get some information regarding Scrum, I did a very common mistake: try to get my hands in all books I could manage to. Is that useful? Not really.
IMHO, the best thing to do is read the book that started it all: “Agile Software Development with SCRUM”, by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle. Some approaches stated in the book are a little dated nowadays, but it’s still the best place to start.
Then, if possible, get a CSM (Certified Scrum Master) course: I can recommend you the services of Boris Gloger - not cheap, mind you, but for sure he delivers!
Next step? Three next steps, in fact: Practice, Practice, Practice.
Only after that you’ll reap benefits from reading other books about Scrum, which deal with specific parts of applying Scrum.
