Customer Rating:  
Summary: Good but not the best
Comment: My first exposure to Mr. Schwaber's work on Agile development was through one of his later books, Agile Project Management with Scrum (Microsoft Professional). I would recommend that other book more highly than this. This one conveys more of the history of how Scrum developed through practice and for that it is a good resource. Knowing why some aspects are not included and having the benefit of the author's train of thought on the topic is useful. But it can also be cumbersome to sift through those lessons learned without the book seeming a bit disorganized. Therefore, if you have time for only one book on this topic, I would recommend the other mentioned. A good resource but not the best from Mr. Schwaber.
Customer Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Intro to Scrum
Comment: This book gives a great introduction for those of you looking to learn more about Scrum. It has it's annoying copy errors, but it's definitely a must read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: My husband likes it so far
Comment: Little weird to review a book before actually reading it. My husband is learning English with it. I observed that it has an accessible language for those who are first exploring SCRUM.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good but not great
Comment: This is a good book with lots of valuable information around the empirical nature of Scrum. For someone who was central to creating Scrum, the book doesn't offer much more.
It's broken up into three parts: Overview of Scrum / Why it works / Case studies.
The overview of Scrum is poor at best. There are much simpler ways to communicate it. If you don't know anything about Scrum then this book probably won't help get you started.
The "Why it works" chapters were much more interesting and valuable. It takes you through the epirical nature of scrum and why previous methodologies have failed. The most interesting part is the brief exposition around the psychological, anthropological and systematical viewpoints around Scrum. Like much of the book, this could have been written better and with more indepth information, but still meets a basic need.
The case studies and ancillary information in the last few chapters feel hasty and are of little value. Many of the examples (although based on actual events) feel contrived and are simplified so much that they aren't highly illuminating.
Overall the book wasn't the greatest but it did provide me with some value. The editing is quite poor and there are numerous mistakes throughout. The general layout of the page is also problematic and makes it difficult to read.
Most laughable however are the images and graphics. They look like they were made in MSPaint and screen capped into the book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good, but Probably Not the Best for You
Comment: ASDS is a very good book, but only for the few who want to be Scrum experts. The material is thorough, and not necessarily easy to get through, in part because the Schwaber and Beedle walk through every part of Scrum in detail, as well as cover situations that likely don't apply to most, and they even go through philosophical views that some may care little about. To be sure, there are gems in the book, and I learned a few important points, but I have been to ScrumMaster certification training, read two other agile books, and been mentored by a CSM/PMP. I feel the book only moved me from 80% comfort level with Scrum to 85%. If you are a consultant managing projects, or you want to teach, coach or train in this area, read the book. If you a internal project manager,product manager, or IT manager, I recommend you get Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager's Guide (The Agile Software Development Series)and read the section on Scrum. It's simpler, cleaner, and the rest of the book gives good background to agile and options you may want to consider. If you are a team or development lead, or the senior developer, get Agile Project Management with Scrum (Microsoft Professional). It's an even easier read, focussed solely on Scrum and gives lots of enjoyable stories of real situations the author went through, good and bad.
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