Quotes on Scrum and Agile Project Management
One of the technical practices of Agile software development is to support cross-functional teams where members perform multiple activities like requirements, coding and testing. In their book “Being Agile”, Leslie Ekas and Scott Will discusses the difficulties of creating a whole team.
“You can’t manage what you don’t measure” is an adage that is popular in project management. However, metrics programs are not easy to implement and have their dark sides. In their book “The Agile Culture: Leading through Trust and Ownership”, Pollyanna Pixton, Paul Gibson and Niel Nickolaisen provides some advice about implementing metrics, the Agile way.
One of values of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development is that you should prefer “responding to change over following a plan”. This introduces a lot of uncertainty in Scrum projects. In his book “Executable Specifications with Scrum”, Mario Cardinal explains that to manage this uncertainty, you have to build your project on a stable platform.
The first value of the Agile Manifesto is ” Individuals and interactions over processes and tools”. Its third value is “Customer collaboration over contract negotiation”. In his book “Agile Analytics”, Ken Collier discusses the concepts of cooperation and collaboration in Agile.
The Product Owner is a very important role in Scrum. He has the key responsibility to create, manage and prioritize the product development backlog. Can this responsibility always be to a unique person or is there situations where you could have a team of product owners? Kenneth Rubin discusses this topic in his “Essential Scrum” book.
One of the principles of the Agile Manifesto says, “continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.” In his book “Implementing Domain-Driven Design“, Vaughn Vernon complains however that adopting Scrum has often led to spend less or no time on good software design practices and he is not the only one in this case.
One of the principles of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development is that you should “Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.” Mickey Mantle and Ron Lichty give some advice in their book on how to facilitate when you are the manager of a self-organized Scrum team.
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