The Scrum course I recently attended didn’t only net me a Certified Scrum Master diploma – a copy of Ken Schwaber’s Agile Project Management With Scrum was also handed out. Overall I found the most recent addition to my software engineering book shelf quite accessible, of modest length (about 150 pages) and divided into logical chapters that don’t need to be consumed in succession.

The main bulk of the book is is a large number of case studies focusing different aspects of the Scrum process, such as the role of the Product Owner, Scrum Master etc. Every case study is followed by a short summary outlining the lesson Schwaber think can be learned from it. I think this approach is quite nice and makes for an entertaining read.

However, authored in 2003 as the book is some passages have a somewhat dated feel. Also, Scrum sprint length is consistently assumed to be 30 days with no convincing argument presented on why this would be the ideal iteration length.