Vacation Reading

July 30, 2008 by peterstev

Twas the night before my vacation
and all through the house
not a creature was stirring,
not even a mouse....

Oops, wrong season. But given that the scrumdevelopment list is preoccupied with profound issues like "Why are we still allowing the term 'Agile Project Manager' (75 Postings) and 'Appropriate Postings' (62 Postings and counting), it is clear that the time has come to stop and recharge our collective batteries. For me that means reading, doing Sodokus, and spending time on the beach with my family. So here is look inside my backpack, as I head off to Rügen...

The Art of Agile Development, by James Shore and Thomas Warden. A couple weeks ago, I posted a reading list for the CIO about Scrum and Agile. I suggested books on Lean and Scrum and asked for recommendations on XP. This came back. I'm really excited about this book. A-A-D starts out by describing the practices of XP, the nuts and bolts practices that a software developer has to understand to develop software effectively. It introduces the concept of 'Études:' like musicians practicing scales on the way to mastery, agile teams practice their handiwork on the way to mastering their trade. And it presents Agile in a larger context. Agility is not about blindly following rules, but applying deeper principles to take the individual, the team and the company to higher levels (but like in music, you can't reach higher levels until you have mastered the basics). Quite refreshing after the polemics on the Scrum list.

Scrum. Produkte zuverlÃ¤ssig und schnell entwickeln ("Scrum: Rapid and Reliable Product Development") by Boris Gloger. Boris has been an influential figure in the Scrum community for may years, having developed the Heartbeat Retrospective and the Ball-Point game for teaching the principles of self organization. I was drawn immediately to Chapter 9, "Introducing Scrum in Large Projects and Organizations". This represents about a 1/4 of the book and is filled with experiences of actually deploying Scrum in large contexts. What can work, are the pitfalls? If you can read German, and want to know about Scrum in the Enterprise, this book is for you. (Boris: what are your plans for an English translation?)

One more book worth mentioning: The Secret. I didn't bring it with me, even though I haven't finished it yet. I have difficulties with this book. Not that I have a strong opinion pro or contra New Age philosophy. But the writing is so repetitive that I can barely read it (and some of things they suggest are really off the wall). Having said that, it has made a difference in my life. This book might have been called 'The Power of Positive Thinking' (except that title is already taken). You define your possibilities by your expectations. I am much happier now than I was three months ago, mostly by just deciding to be happy and seeing myself as a happy person.

I was very surprised to find a Scrum analogy in this book. You are driving a car at night. You have two headlights, which illuminate the next 60m (200ft) down the road. That is enough to get you from Los Angeles to Washington, or from Madrid to Vienna. Yes it's easier with a map. But you don't need a detailed itinerary, otherwise known as a big design up front.