“Scrum, The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time” is a great starting point to help you understand why Scrum came about.
Author Jeff Sutherland describes Scrum and its evolution with anecdotes from his background as a fighter pilot, software developer, problem solver, trainer, researcher and coach.
The book is organized into nine different chapters, with a conclusion at the end of each chapter.
Chapter One: The way the world works is broken
It tells the story of a project within the FBI that started with traditional methods but did not go well and was brought back to life with Scrum.
Inferences:Planning is useful. Blindly following plans is not wise. Instead, it is necessary to recognize problems quickly and adapt and change accordingly.
Chapter Two: The origins of Scrum
The work of Japanese business professors Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka is mentioned.
The New New Product Development Game, written by the professors for the Harvard Business Review, describes companies that use overlapping development, cross-functional teams with autonomy, decision-making authority with a superior purpose, and no management dictation.
The professors compared the work of the teams to that of a rugby team and found that the best teams were the ones that practiced Scrum.
Inferences:Hesitation is fatal. Observe, orient, decide, act.
Chapter Three: Teams
It talks about the impact of team size, the role of the scrum master and what that means, or what you need to be a great team.
Inferences:You must provide the necessary conditions for the teams to succeed.
Chapter Four: Time
Sutherland’s experiences with sprinting and daily stand-up.
Inferences: Time is limited and must be made the most of.
Chapter Five: Waste is a crime
Toyota’s Taichi Ohno’s ideas about waste are mentioned. According to Taichi Ohno, there are three different types of waste: Muri, waste through irrationality; Mura, waste through inconsistency; and Muda, waste through outputs.
Inferences: Multitasking makes you mentally weak. You should emphasize logic, focus on working efficiently instead of working hard, and put aside useless policies.
Chapter Six: Plan reality, not fantasy
The project in Medco company is explained. Concepts such as planning poker, Fibonacci series, user stories, velocity and sprint planning are mentioned.
Inferences: You should focus on making realistic plans with proven methods, knowing and trying to improve your speed of completion.
Chapter Seven: Happiness
It is said that happiness is an achievement and that it must be made visible and measurable.
Inferences:True happiness is found in the process, not in the outcome. It is not enough to just feel happy; you need to measure that feeling and compare it to actual performance. Work with a dashboard that shows all the things that need to be done (to do), what is being worked on (doing) and what is actually done (done).
Chapter Eight: Priorities
It is explained that to be successful you need to address each of the following: what you can do, what you are passionate about and what you can sell. The benefits of using a backlog to know what to do and when to do it.
Inferences: Create and prioritize a list of everything that can be done in a project. Put the items with the highest value and lowest risk at the top of this work list, then the next, and then the next, and so on.
Chapter Nine: Change the World
Examples of Scrum being used outside software development are mentioned. An interesting example is the use of Scrum in a Dutch school (EDUSCRUM).
Inferences:The type of project or problem does not matter; Scrum can be used in any endeavor to improve performance and results.
Conclusion
This book can be characterized as a good starter book that provides information about the philosophy of Scrum supported by concrete examples.
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