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| Mitch Lacey |
Also, check out my review of the book here.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Interview with Mitch Lacey, author of The Scrum Field Guide
Also, check out my review of the book here.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Written by Mitch Lacey, published by Addison-Wesley Professional as part of their Agile Software Development Series)
One of the things that is difficult about taking a Certified
Scrum Master or Certified Product Owner classes is that to a large extent, the
material looks at Scrum in a state that is (for many) based on an ideal they
may never reach. Once students leave the class and go back to work, the number
of obstacles they face in the struggle towards Agile transformation can be a
daunting thing to overcome. If they are brave enough to take up the challenge,
they soon bang up against the fact that when they try to apply Scrum in the
wild, what they end up facing may not sync up so well with what was taught in
class.
Enter Mitch Lacey’s new book: The Scrum Field Guide:Practical Advice For Your First Year. The Field Guide picks up where the
classes leave off and addresses some of the real world issues that people face
when they go back to their workplace and start trying to implement Scrum and
Agile. In a narrative that is unassuming
and easy to read, Mitch Lacey shares stories, his own experiences, and advice
from other expert sources on how to actually get Scrum up and running and
producing results. The book covers some
of the most common questions that come up during implementation like:
When we don’t know what our
velocity is, what do we tell our stakeholders we can commit to?
What if you have to play two roles
at once?
How do you deal with team members
that are only needed for brief, very specific types of work?
How is Scrum Master a full time job
and how to you convince others of that?
The cases are presented through stories that set up the
different situations. Lacey then draws on his own experiences leading and
coaching Agile teams to explore the different options and offer his
recommendations.
The book also includes a “First Aid” section for those who
are trying to solve very specific issues with things like “Running a Productive
Daily Standup Meeting” and dealing with some of the cultural challenges that
are part of Agile Transformation.
While it is called the Scrum Field Guide, the book is not
just about Scrum. Lacey introduces his own practice of Agile by saying that for
him, one of the keys to getting Scrum to work has been pairing it with Extreme
Programming. Throughout the book, Lacey introduces XP practices where he has
seen them effectively utilized with Scrum.
While the book does include information on the actual Scrum
Framework (in the Appendix) it is really designed to work best for folks who
have a bit of experience in using Scrum and are seeing various issues, or
“smells” as they are often called, creep up.
There are a lot of books out there that are aimed at
clarifying what the Scrum Framework is. If you have clarity on what Scrum is
supposed to be, and need a resource to help you make it work, The Scrum Field
Guide will be a great addition to your tool belt. The title of the book
indicates that this book is intended for people who are in their first year of
doing Scrum. I’ve been working with Scrum for many years now and I’m also a
Certified Scrum Trainer. I still found a lot of valuable information in this
book and expect it is something I’ll be referencing in the future when I’m
coaching.
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