Guide to the Scrum Body of Knowledge(SBOK Guide)by Saltpath

[lnygaard]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "SCRUMstudy-SBOK-Guide-2013" by Scrumstudy.]

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Scrum is a methodology for product management that is simple and effective. It is setup in such a way to provide companies an easy way to produce their product efficiently. A Guide to the Scrum Body of Knowledge (SBOK Guide) written by Tridibesh Saltpathy, gives a poor analysis of this.

From the beginning, readers are assured that the guide is meant for those with experience with Scrum as well as “persons with no prior experience or knowledge of Scrum”. However, it was not setup in a way to make it accessible to anyone who did not already have a background with Scrum. I already had a limited understanding of Scrum prior to reading this, but without that I doubt I would have made it pass Chapter 1.

The book reads like a mashup of a poorly conceived textbook and the assembly instructions of an off-brand furniture company. The “guide” jumps from one idea to the next rather than seamlessly moving on to the next subject. It claims that it should be used as a reference guide while implementing Scrum, but there is nothing in the beginning to say how to use the book and the sections detailing how to implement are vague and repetitive.

In the beginning chapters I felt the diagrams were used effectively, but in chapters 8 through 12 they used the exact same diagrams over and over for no purpose than to take up space. Interesting ideas on how Scrum works were overcomplicated to the point where it didn’t make sense anymore.

The beauty of Scrum is in its simplicity. In small teams, Scrum members work towards a goal in what is called a Sprint and at the end of their Sprint, release their product and move on to the next Sprint. Before a Sprint, team members brainstorm possible risks that could prevent them finishing, as well as list every possible step that needs to be reached before the product can be released. SBOK takes this easy to understand methodology, and stuffs 350 odd pages into it, pompously repeating itself over and over.

I rate this guidebook 1 out of 4 stars. SBOK not only gave poor instruction on Scrum, but was badly written. I understand that this was a group effort, and this may be why the writing suffered. What is ironic about this whole book is that if Scrum had been implemented properly while writing it, they might have turned out something better.

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