The Agile Pocket Guide: A Quick Start to Making Your Business Agile Using Scrum and Beyond

Preface

“You should write a book.”

My boss told me some years ago. At the time I was sending Agile updates to the team every week via e-mail (and I still do this in my consulting and coaching work) about better practices in business transformation, product and software development, and team optimization. These were subjects I knew from experience would help us develop more efficient methods than those we were already using as a team.

But when I began to think about actually writing this book, I was temporarily sidetracked. Was there really a need for yet another book about business transformation and software development, particularly Agile and Scrum software development? (In the 20 years or so since Scrum methodology was first used and called “Scrum” by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber, a lot has been written on the subject!)

I've read many books by famous authors out there who help the community create better products, increase value across the enterprise, and grow businesses with start-up mentalities. Eric Ries, Scott Belsky, Geoff Smart and Randy Street, and Seth Godin are some of the more popular authors rising today who write about better product development. In terms of Agile software development, Kent Beck, Alistair Cockburn, Ron Jeffries, and Ken Schwaber have been immensely helpful in my years as a trainer and coach in this field—for small and large businesses, nonprofits, and even government agencies.

This guide isn't meant to be part of those great pillars in the Agile ...