Voortdurend op zoek naar nieuwe manieren om Scrum uit te leggen
Zonder het belang van mijn werk met eXtreme Programming verpakt in Scrum in België sinds 2003 te minimaliseren, is Nederland toch wel heel belangrijk geweest tijdens mijn ontdekkingsreis met Scrum. Ik genoot het voorrecht om vanaf 2010 in belangrijke mate in Nederland kennis en inzicht in het Scrum-proces te mogen verspreiden. In 2011 en 2012 bevond ik me, als Global Scrum Leader en Principal Consultant bij Capgemini, geheel onverwachts in het oog van een Scrum-orkaan die stormenderhand Nederland veroverde. Toen ik door mijn werk bij Scrum.org (2013-2016) een goed beeld kreeg van de mondiale verspreiding van Scrum, stelde ik verheugd vast dat Nederland wereldwijd (!) koploper was wat betreft de invoering van Scrum. Dat is het vandaag nog steeds. Dankzij de vele mensen, teams en organisaties waarmee ik sinds 2010 mocht werken, werd Nederland wat Scrum betreft zowat mijn professioneel thuisland. En zo voelt het nog steeds, anno 2025.
In 2013 creëerde ik, quasi op toevallige wijze, een licht en eenvoudig boek over het licht en eenvoudig framework dat Scrum is. Niet toevallig was dat op vraag van en werd dat boek gepubliceerd door Van Haren Publishing, een Nederlandse uitgever van IT-boeken en -publicaties. De eerste, Engelstalige uitgave verscheen in 2013 op de markt als Scrum – A Pocket Guide. In 2016 publiceerden we mijn Nederlandse vertaling ervan als Scrum Wegwijzer. De tweede druk van de Nederlandstalige editie, die in 2022 verscheen, was dan weer gebaseerd op de derde druk van de Engelstalige versie, die in 2021 werd gepubliceerd.
In August 2024, the 4th edition of my book “Scrum – A Pocket Guide” was published. I created it because I am continuously uncovering better ways of explaining Scrum and want to help people by sharing these ways. Luckily, my publisher, Van Haren Group, agreed that there was value in making my update available (again) for the many friends of Scrum around the globe.
In my announcement I said I was planning to share a few excerpts from the updated version. Find herewith a compilation of my thoughts and observations on Agile, agility, Scrum and organizational transformation from the updated edition of my book.
The challenge is real
The use of lightweight, Agile methods continues to gain traction with Scrum being the most widely adopted framework. The general level of interest in Scrum is already huge and still its use keeps expanding, in and beyond software and (new) product development.
In August 2024, the 4th edition of my book “Scrum – A Pocket Guide” was published. I created it because I am continuously uncovering better ways of explaining Scrum and want to help people by sharing these ways. Luckily, my publisher, Van Haren Group, agreed that there was value in making my update available (again) for the many friends of Scrum around the globe.
In my announcement I said I was planning to share a few excerpts from the updated version. Find herewith the (slightly edited) excerpt with my thoughts and observations on the past waves of Scrum and the rise of the 4th Scrum Wave.
In 2013 I ended up writing a book about Scrum for Van Haren Publishing, a publishing house specialized in IT publications based in the Netherlands. They wanted to add a book about Scrum to their portfolio. By that time, I had been applying Scrum for 10 years and in the two years preceding the actual creation of my book, I had been at the heart of the Scrum storm that was sweeping the Netherlands. And survived.
Writing a book about Scrum was anything but a long-lived hope, ambition or dream. Rather, it was an accidental and unplanned endeavor. At the same time, writing a simple book with as few lines of text as possible actually turned out taking a lot more time and energy than I thought it would take. I went through that effort in the time between ending my position as a Principal Consultant at a large international consulting company and embarking on my partnership journey with Ken Schwaber (Scrum co-creator) as the Director of the Professional Scrum Series at Scrum.org.
Imagine my surprise that more than a decade later the 4th edition of my book is now globally available via diverse channels.
The updated, third edition of my book “Scrum – A Pocket Guide” is now available worldwide, as a digital and as a paperback edition. Still small enough to fit in your pocket and carry it with you anywhere, anytime.Still a smart travel companion.
I accidentally created the first edition of my book “Scrum – A Pocket Guide” in 2013. I consider how I described the Scrum Values in that first edition. In July 2016 they were added to the Scrum Guide. I consider how I already described the traditional three questions of the Daily Scrum as a good but optional tactic in that first version. These questions being optional was added to the Scrum Guide in November 2017 and their description was even completely removed from the November 2020 edition; taking away all doubt that they are indeed optional. In 2018 I deliberately evolved my Scrum travel companion into a second edition (available 2019).
Rather than repeating the rules of the game, in my pocket guide to Scrum I focus on the purpose of those rules while clearly distinguishing them from tactics to play the game. Tactics are not described in the Scrum Guide because they ‘vary widely and are described elsewhere’. Given its size (small) and volume (only about 100 pages) I hope my book lives up to what its subtitle says: a smart travel companion. Creating and updating my book, accidentally or otherwise, had many unanticipated (mostly positive) consequences, for which I am very grateful. I could not hope for, nor aspired, continual appreciation for being such a comprehensive description of the Scrum framework seven+ years later.
In the meantime, more and bigger challenges keep surfacing. The balance of society keeps drastically and rapidly shifting from industrial (often physical) labor to digital (often virtual) work. More and different people ask for guidance and insights on their journey of Scrum in domains beyond software and new product development. Organizations look for clear insights in the simple rules of Scrum as they envision re-emerging their structures and their way of working around Scrum. Without rendering them overly vague I believe that the third edition of “Scrum – A Pocket Guide” holds more generic, yet still appropriate and complete descriptions of the rules of Scrum; using different words and other angles to the known set of rules without creating or leaving holes. Rather than omitting them all, terms and examples from Scrum in software and new product development environments now serve more as examples for other industries where Scrum is adopted.
I believe that this third edition offers the more than ever needed, foundational insights for people and their organizations to properly shape their Scrum, regardless of their domain or business. The focus is still more on the intent and purpose of the rules and roles in the framework, while clarifying some changes in terminology from the 2020 update of the Scrum Guide. Helping people understand the purpose of the rules and the roles of Scrum remains at the heart of all my work and actions as an independent Scrum Caretaker–training, coaching, consulting and speaking. It helps me drive forward an evolution towards more humanized workplaces.
Following are some of the more popular channels to acquire the third edition of “Scrum – A Pocket Guide”:
I thank Bhuvan Misra for his much-appreciated, critical feedback on this third edition. I thank all translators for their past and on-going efforts to spread my words in different languages. Translations of this updated, third edition in Russian, Polish, French and traditional Chinese are in progress. I thank all at Van Haren Publishing, and especially Ivo van Haren, for giving me the chance to express my views on Scrum.
Ever since the accidental creation of my book “Scrum – A Pocket Guide” in 2013, and its deliberate evolution in 2019, I’ve been receiving inquiries about an audiobook version. So far, I have not been able to make that happen but the 2020 pandemic storm got me into implementing the audio idea in a different form.
In subsequent daily broadcasts I have read all chapters from my pocket guide to Scrum. Every reading session happened on working days at 3 pm CET (Central European Time), with each session continuing were the previous session ended. The sessions were open for 100 attendants and were time-boxed to a total of 1 hour of me reading.
On Monday 30 March 2020 I delivered episode 5 (the final) of my “Daily Scrum Pocketcasts” in which I have read following chapters from my book:
4. THE FUTURE STATE OF SCRUM
4.1 Yes, we do Scrum. And…
4.2 The power of the possible product
4.3 The upstream adoption of Scrum
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Besides the recorded episode being available on my YouTube channel, find the audio version on SoundCloud.
Ever since the accidental creation of my book “Scrum – A Pocket Guide” in 2013, and its deliberate evolution in 2019, I’ve been receiving inquiries about an audiobook version. So far, I have not been able to make that happen but the 2020 pandemic storm got me into implementing the audio idea in a different form.
In subsequent daily broadcasts I have read all chapters from my pocket guide to Scrum. Every reading session happened on working days at 3 pm CET (Central European Time), with each session continuing were the previous session ended. The sessions were open for 100 attendants and were time-boxed to a total of 1 hour of me reading.
On Friday 27 March 2020 I delivered episode 4 of my “Daily Scrum Pocketcasts” in which I have read following chapters from my book:
2.7 The Scrum values
3. TACTICS FOR A PURPOSE
3.1 Visualizing progress
3.2 The Daily Scrum questions
3.3 Product Backlog refinement
3.4 User Stories
3.5 Planning Poker
3.6 Sprint length
3.7 How Scrum scales
Besides the recorded episode being available on my YouTube channel, find the audio version on SoundCloud.
Ever since the accidental creation of my book “Scrum – A Pocket Guide” in 2013, and its deliberate evolution in 2019, I’ve been receiving inquiries about an audiobook version. So far, I have not been able to make that happen but the 2020 pandemic storm got me into implementing the audio idea in a different form.
In subsequent daily broadcasts I have read all chapters from my pocket guide to Scrum. Every reading session happened on working days at 3 pm CET (Central European Time), with each session continuing were the previous session ended. The sessions were open for 100 attendants and were time-boxed to a total of 1 hour of me reading.
On Thursday 26 March 2020 I delivered episode 3 of my “Daily Scrum Pocketcasts” in which I have read following chapters from my book:
2.5 Playing the game (continued)
2.6 Core principles of Scrum
Besides the recorded episode being available on my YouTube channel, find the audio version on SoundCloud.
Ever since the accidental creation of my book “Scrum – A Pocket Guide” in 2013, and its deliberate evolution in 2019, I’ve been receiving inquiries about an audiobook version. So far, I have not been able to make that happen but the 2020 pandemic storm got me into implementing the audio idea in a different form.
In subsequent daily broadcasts I have read all chapters from my pocket guide to Scrum. Every reading session happened on working days at 3 pm CET (Central European Time), with each session continuing were the previous session ended. The sessions were open for 100 attendants and were time-boxed to a total of 1 hour of me reading.
On Wednesday 25 March 2020 I delivered episode 2 of my “Daily Scrum Pocketcasts” in which I have read following chapters from my book:
1.6 Combining Agile and Lean
2. SCRUM
2.1 The house of Scrum
2.2 Scrum, what’s in a name?
2.3 Is that a gorilla I see over there?
2.4 Framework, not methodology
2.5 Playing the game (intro)
Besides the recorded episode being available on my YouTube channel, find the audio version on SoundCloud.
Ever since the accidental creation of my book “Scrum – A Pocket Guide” in 2013, and its deliberate evolution in 2019, I’ve been receiving inquiries about an audiobook version. So far, I have not been able to make that happen but the 2020 pandemic storm got me into implementing the audio idea in a different form.
In subsequent daily broadcasts I have read all chapters from my pocket guide to Scrum. Every reading session happened on working days at 3 pm CET (Central European Time), with each session continuing were the previous session ended. The sessions were open for 100 attendants and were time-boxed to a total of 1 hour of me reading.
On Tuesday 24 March 2020 I delivered episode 1 of my “Daily Scrum Pocketcasts” in which I have read following chapters from my book:
Foreword by Ken Schwaber
Preface
1. THE AGILE PARADIGM
1.1 To shift or not to shift
1.2 The origins of Agile
1.3 Definition of Agile
1.4 The iterative-incremental continuum
1.5 Agility can’t be planned
Besides the recorded episode being available on my YouTube channel, find the audio version on SoundCloud.
