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What you could learn from ‘Scrum A pocket guide’ by Gunther Verheyen (2013, 99 pages)
The book starts by attempting to explain Agile and then linking Lean and Agile together. Many of the principles espoused of Lean and Agile (see table below) do not match what I have read and experienced elsewhere.
| Lean | Agile |
| Respect for people | Self-organising teams |
| Kaizen | Inspect & adapt, short feedback cycles |
| Prevent and eliminate waste | No un-used spec of architecture |
| Pull inventory | Estimates reflect team capacity |
| Visual management | Information radiators |
| Built-in-quality | Definition of done, engineering standards |
| Customer value | Active business collaboration |
| Optimizing the while | Whole team together |
| Deliver fast | Timeboxed iteration |
| The manager-teacher | The facilitating servant-leader |
Figure 1.6 (p35)
Explaining that there is a difference between the Agile approach (the manifesto and principles) and Agile practices (for example, Scrum, XP and Kanban) would have helped to reduce confusion.
Chapter 2, the book provides a reasonable history of Scrum and a more detailed account of Scrum. Suggesting that Scrum is a framework and not a methodology is helpful, as it will reduce the likelihood that people will be dogmatic in the application of Scrum.
The roles and responsibility of the Scrum teams outlined in a straightforward war and are paraphrased below.
- Product owner – responsible for the business perspective and represents all stakeholders, creating the backlog
- Development team – self-organises to turn the back-log into done work
- Scrum master – facilitates, guides and removes obstacles from the team
The book cleverly articulates how the Scrum rituals tie into the Scrum artefacts and result in inspection and adaption in a very useful table (see below).
| Event | Inspection | Adaption |
| Sprint planning | Product Backlog | Sprint Goal
Sprint Backlog Forecast |
| Daily Scrum | Sprint progress (towards the Sprint Goal) | Sprint Backlog
Daily plan |
| Sprint Review | Product Increment
Product Backlog |
Product Backlog |
| Sprint Retrospective | Team & collaboration
Technology & engineering Definition of Done |
Actionable improvements |
The book correctly lists the Scrum values (p71) as:
- Commitment
- Focus
- Openness
- Respect
- Courage
Despite being well researched and referenced, this book is confusing. While there are some good points raised, I would not recommend this book.
If you really want to, you can buy Scrum A Pocket Guide here on Amazon UK.
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