A week ago I finished reading “Scrum and XP from the Trenches: How We Do Scrum” by Henrik Kniberg. It turned out to be a good follow-up to “Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time” by Jeff Sutherland, which is more about the philosophy of Scrum, while this one is about the practice of implementing it.
The book has had two editions: in 2007 and in 2015. Usually, in later editions, outdated bits are thrown out or rewritten. Here, though, the author decided to stay honest with the reader, so the second edition includes the original 2007 text, supplemented with comments after seven years of experience. It’s very interesting to read when the author first writes one thing, and then in a comment says: “That was wrong.”
Another interesting thing is that even after years of practicing Scrum, the author still writes in some places something like: there are four ways to do this or that ritual, we tried all four, settled on this one, and you should try them yourself and pick the method you like.
The book devotes little time to user stories and planning. For that you need to read a separate book.
Overall, the book is very lively and good. The author writes that he wrote the book over a weekend. Sat down on Saturday morning, got up on Saturday evening. I’m happy with the read; I’ll use it at work as a guide to action.
The book can be downloaded completely free of charge: http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/scrum-xp-from-the-trenches-2 And paper copies, of course, cost money.