Coming soon · Book Profile
The Scrum Guide the Definitive Guide
The definitive, lightweight framework of roles, events, artifacts, and rules that enables people to address complex adaptive problems while delivering products of the highest possible value.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
The Scrum Guide is the authoritative definition of Scrum, written by its creators Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. It presents a deceptively simple framework built on empirical process control—transparency, inspection, and adaptation—and lived through five values: commitment, courage, focus, openness, and respect. In fewer than twenty pages it specifies exactly who does the work (a self-organizing, cross-functional Scrum Team of a Product Owner, Development Team, and Scrum Master), how time is structured (Sprints containing Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective), and what work becomes visible (Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, and Increment). By making the relative efficacy of work techniques transparent and by forcing frequent inspection and adaptation, Scrum lets teams manage complexity, control risk, and continuously improve the product, the team, and their environment. It is 'lightweight, simple to understand, difficult to master'—and it is what any team wrestling with complex work should read to get the rules of the game right.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- A team or organization that wants to deliver valuable, complex products predictably and adapt to change.
- The problem
- Complex product work resists up-front planning, and teams struggle to deliver value while risk and uncertainty rise. They feel overwhelmed by complexity, uncertain whether they are on track, and frustrated by wasted effort and rework.
- The plan
- Form a self-organizing, cross-functional Scrum Team with a Product Owner, Development Team, and Scrum Master.
- Maintain an ordered, transparent Product Backlog of everything needed in the product.
- Run fixed-length Sprints, planning a Sprint Goal and Sprint Backlog for each.
- Hold Daily Scrums to inspect progress and adapt the plan.
- Deliver a 'Done' Increment and hold Sprint Reviews and Retrospectives to inspect and adapt product and process.
- The payoff
- Frequent delivery of potentially releasable, high-value Increments. · Reduced risk through short horizons and continuous inspection. · A transparent, adaptive team that continuously improves product, team, and environment.
See our guide
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- It's Not Luck · Eliyahu M. Goldratt
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- Critical Chain · Eliyahu M. Goldratt
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- The Choice · Eliyahu M. Goldratt
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- The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement · Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt
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This book codifies the technical practices required to build the 'deployment pipeline' that Erik advocates. It provides the 'how-to' for achieving the fast, low-risk, automated deployments that are central to the First and Second Ways.
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- Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results · Mike Rother
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- Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software · Michael T. Nygard
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