Book Review - Agile Project Management with Scrum

I've just finished reading Ken Schwaber's - Agile project management with Scrum.

Well worth the read, although a little pricey as is always expected from Microsoft's Press.

It was my first thorough read/investigation into Scrum, although I have done some reading into its basic premise on earlier occasions.

I've got to admit I was quite excited about what Scrum proposes, it was much more in line with my own beliefs on project management than many other methodologies I've read about.

I'm not going use this post to discuss Scrum and its benefits, I'll save that for another day. Instead this is a quick review of the book itself.

For those of you that know Scrum, you'll be aware that with Scrum it's relatively easy to explain the components of the methodology. It's the application of those simple components and rules that are significant.

With this in mind Schwaber doesn't go into great detail about all of the components involved in Scrum. Instead he describes an overview of the roles and delivery process in one of the initial chapters - Backdrop -The Science of Scrum; then leaves descriptive details to apply them to real life scenarios to all further explanations.

Considering the theory behind Scrum, this makes perfect sense. Scrums self organising units, empowering teams of individuals to complete projects through self managed plans of delivery.

Taking the book into real world examples enables Schwaber to detail some of the issues you may encounter when trying to implement Scrum.

To this end he goes on to describe each role within the process and issues he's encountered when trying to assist companies with their adoption of Scrum into their project teams.

He focuses on a selection of about 5 different clients that his worked with to illustrate the various elements and possible issues that you may encountered.

This allows him also to illustrate how flexibility is a core requisite of any Scrum implementation and the benefits this can bring.

It also allows him to deal with possible issues you may encounter when attempting to change management cultures that revolve around project delivery by more traditional structured approaches, such as Prince2.

Real life examples allow Schwaber to illustrate some innovative approaches that he's had to adopt in order to get management to accept Scrum as a valid delivery approach.

The book finishes with a number of appendices which detail all of the roles and related documentation that you can expect to produce during a typical Scrum life cycle or Sprint.

This is a more than adequate way of imparting these details rather than wasting time in the core body of the book.

I particularly liked the chapter that dealt with the Scrum Master role in the implementation of Scrum. It detailed a number of real life examples of which I've experienced very similar scenarios to in my career. The scenarios illustrate the mistakes made by the Scrum Master and what was required to resolve the situation.

There are also a number of notes that followed the publication of the book that cover how to implement Scrum with specific requirements; such as meeting Capability Maturity Model requirements.

All in all I thought the book an excellent read and it has certainly inspired me to adopt some of the ideas of Scrum to my day to day work.

Scrum would have worked well with a number of previous projects I've worked on within an enterprise infrastructure environment. It seems harder or less appropriate to implement with smaller projects within a web environment that may be completed within less than 30 days.

If I were to have any gripes about the book they would only be the price, a little sharp but always expected with anything from the Microsoft Press.

Perhaps also the editing of the book, I noticed a few editorial mistakes with repeated names in the wrong places and other very minor issues. Which when you're paying top dollar you would hope wouldn't appear.

Other than that, I would highly recommend the book to anyone thinking about Scrum implementations within their organisation; or for curious project managers that might just want to add another string to their bow of methodology knowledge.


Related reading:

Digital Project Management - Episode One - Introduction - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2008/12/digital-project-management-episode-1.html

Digital Project Management - Episode Two - Project Acquisition - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/02/digital-project-management-episode-2.html

Digital Project Management - Episode Three - Planning, Pitching & Acceptance - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/digital-project-management-episode-3.html

Digital Project Management - The Communication Brief - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/05/communication-brief-initial-project.html

blog comments powered by Disqus

Why bother with social media?

As most regular visitors to Digital Signals will know I work for a digital media agency.

Now, you would think that all that work within the digital agency world would be early adopters of all things digital, and all staff would have vast Twitter accounts and a fully integrated social media platform.

This is not so.

Social media is not for everyone and why should it be. We are, after all, all different thankfully. Engaging and communicating with other industry colleagues or interested parties is not something that takes everyone's fancy.

In my role, however, I've found social media to be invaluable so far and it's value continues to grow on a daily basis.

To get the real value from social media I believe you can't just use Twitter or say Facebook. You need to take a multi-pronged approach, using a number of applications that can answer different needs.

The following apps are the ones I used regularly and would recommend others focus their energies on, and a brief review of what I use them for:

To date, I still keep Facebook to people I've met face to face with a few minor exceptions.

I have photos of my family on Facebook and that's not something I want to make available to the public domain. I don't mind the odd photo here and there, but photo albums of holidays and family are something I still want to restrict access to.

I've noticed how much busier Facebook is these days when I do return to my profile and also how busy the status updates are. I seem to spend a lot of time on Twitter that others spend on Facebook.

I've been meaning to create a Facebook account for Digital Signals, but have yet to get round to it. It's something I intend to do as I do have several business related invites on Facebook that I'd like to connect with.

Facebook is still growing it's already enormous network, it's worth joining if you haven't already for both personal and business networking.


LinkedIn has been one of my least busy social networks, but likely one of my most productive and valuable.

Having made an industry/career move has meant that I climbed one career tree to relatively high heights, only to have to start climbing another much lower down.

LinkedIn has enabled me to get back in touch with people I used to work with who, hopefully, respect me for the work I've previously completed. This has lead to a number of new business leads in my industry of choice and I hope will lead to many more.

LinkedIn is an invaluable network, but one that I always maintain a professional profile rather than a more relaxed conversational application.


I love Friendfeed, as I've stated many times before. But like a cat, Friendfeed can be very good at looking after itself.

It's used as an aggregation point for all of my social networking applications and you can find just about all of my online activity there.

It's recent jump in activity has increased my usage of the interface, but not as much as it deserves. If you don't use Friendfeed yet, you should.

What can you say about Twitter that you don't already know? Not a lot I guess, everyone's banging on about Twitter at the moment and that's because it's very good at what it does.

I still hold a lot of value in Twitter, but I haven't gone down the auto follow route just for the sake of achieving exceedingly high follower numbers. I still pick everyone I want to follow and believe this is the way to achieve the best value from the application.

It's great for developing a community of contacts from all walks of life. Forget Wolfram Alpha, if you need a question answered, ask your Twitter community. Some of the answers I've got back to questions asked have been great on Twitter.


I'm a big music fan and I think sharing your music with others speaks volumes about your personality that would take a thousand words to describe.

While I think social music is generally the domain of individual users of the platforms, I think it could be a great addition to the right brands digital portfolio.

Music can engage with people that you wouldn't otherwise suspect of holding similar interests. I've made some of my most interesting contacts via my social music profiles.


Blog is something I hold in high esteem as I've raved about many times.

Blogging properly takes great commitment, but the reward from this commitment can be great.

It will take a long time to build respect for your blog, particularly if like me your are a solo writer.

I find my blog is a great way to not only illustrate your own knowledge on specific matters; but also a place to start conversations which can increase your own understanding and gain you new contacts around that subject.



Obviously all of the details above are looking at the use of these applications from a personal perspective rather than a brand or corporate perspective.

I've yet to offer any detailed advice to a client on how to go about using social media to market their brand. I have however provided a number of clients with advice on what the benefits of social media can be and how we can help them interface social media tools into existing digital platforms.

But the benefits of building networks of people within either your industry or other industries can have great results.

It takes time to work at all of these different social media profiles, but in my experience it's well worth the effort.

There are obviously a whole multitude of other social networks out there other than the ones detailed above, but these networks are the ones that have worked for me so far.

Business is quiet for some at the moment, can't say that's the case in digital media, now would be a great time to start building contacts and good customer relations with your networks.

Taking the time to do this properly should be rewarding for all concerned. I'll take more about what these rewards can be in another post soon.


Related links:

Friendfeed adoption - So who are you again? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/05/friendfeed-adoption-so-who-are-you.html

What are the costs of social media? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/what-is-cost-of-social-media.html

What now for Twitter - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/what-now-for-twitter.html

My social media profile - Online management http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/02/my-social-media-profile-online.html

blog comments powered by Disqus

Honesty is the best policy

I've always been a big believer in honesty being the best policy.

I think it builds relationships stronger and helps no end with fluid communication. I aim to apply this attitude to all aspects of my life, from my relationship with my wife, to the relationships I build with clients.

With an honest approach you avoid the complicated cat and dog game of ensuring you don't reveal something which perhaps you shouldn't. You'll talk freely knowing that whatever you say shouldn't come as a surprise.

This should give you a much greater degree of efficiency when communicating anything between parties. You talk openly about associated costs, your understanding of requirements, how you envisage implementing a project and when it's going to be delivered - realistically.

In this current climate, the one thing we shouldn't have to pay for is transparency and honesty, these should always come for free. While people might not be spending big at the moment, it's a good time to give that little extra to ensure that when the economy does pick up again any relationships you do have are stronger than they were before.

This transparency and honesty should not only exist in the relationships I have with clients and staff, but also in my relationships with my suppliers.

I expect my suppliers for both my personal life and my work life to be transparent in what they're offering me and how much it's going to cost me.

This isn't what I usually find holds true, but when you do find honesty it's a refreshing change and always improves my appreciation or loyalty with that supplier/brand.

Being honest doesn't need to mean telling everyone everything. Knowing when to hold your tongue on a matter is a skill that's taken me years to learn; and I still put my foot in it every now and again.

With honesty you build trust; trust is invaluable and will become even more invaluable when the markets start to pick up again and clients marketing and advertising budgets once more being to grow.

If you've spent the quieter times building relationships and developing that trust, it should reap good rewards at a later stage. But being honest isn't about expecting anything in return.

This trust relationship built on honesty shouldn't just apply to your relationships with your clients, it should be as equally important between you and your staff.

A relationship that is based on honesty and trust with staff should create an environment of mutual respect. This environment should produce a more efficient production environment where staff are willing to go the extra mile to deliver a truly excellent product.

It's a simple concept that can be applied to all walks of like, but sadly in this competitive world we live, one that is often over looked in favour of profit.

The two shouldn't be mutually exclusive, in fact in my eyes it should be quite the opposite.

An honest discussion is always more effective for all parties, something I always actively encourage.


Related links:

Managing expectations - Keeping everyone happy - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/managing-expectations-keep-everyone.html

Universal translation- The global communication mashup - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/universal-translation-global.html

Client & staff engagement - The importance of soft skills - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/02/client-staff-engagement-importance-of.html

The art of conversation - A brief synopsis - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/art-of-conversation-brief-synopsis.html

blog comments powered by Disqus