What’s the book? Scrum – A Pocket Guide by Gunther Verheyen(I know I just reviewed a Scrum book, but I recently took the test (and passed!). This will be it for a while :))
Why did I choose to read it? / What made me want to read it? I read it a while ago. Took a (long) break. Just picked it back up again after taking a the scrum practice test, and missing some of the answers. 🙁
What did I like about this book? This books is very comprehensive and thorough. It does a good job detailing the Scrum framework. But to be honest, it was not an easy read by any means. It’s pretty dry, and the sentences are dense. And by that I mean, each sentence holds a lot of information. And the book is not (and to be fair, it does not purport to be) an introductory book on Scrum. I’d recommend reading this book after answering some practice questions. This book becomes a way easier read if you are looking for specific pieces of information.
What was my favorite quote or story? This book (or rather pocket guide) was fairly technical in nature. So I liked it for its informational value, rather than entertainment value. But I did like that the author chose to include a section on Agile.
Would I recommend this book? Tentative yes. At the time I bought the book (summer 2014, probably), it was the most comprehensive thing I’ve come across. But since then, Scrum has evolved. And the (free) Scrum Guide on scrum.org has more content now. And also the book is vague on things like when you have multiple scrum teams working on a single project, “Scrum of Scrum”, and when things don’t perfectly fit into a sprint (either the team has bitten too much off, or finished quicker than expected). But those are also newer concepts that Scrum has just formally recognized. So I would still scour the forum boards for those gaps. 🙂