Note: I don’t review substandard books. I read a lot. I don’t have a lot of time to review books, so what I do share, I’m sharing because the book has been very influential and helpful to me in my life, and I believe it will also help others. If you are a marketer or entrepreneur, these are must reads.
Quick links/info:
- Buy the book >>
- My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
- I read it 4 times in 4 days after first picking it up.
- Author Twitter profile
- Tags: Productivity, process, getting stuff done, teams, working well with others, employee engagement, scaling, growth, programming.
How to know if this book can help you:
- You have a team that isn’t working as well or as fast as you know it could and should.
- You want to get more stuff done in less time.
- You run a business.
- You are part of a team.
- You want to free yourself or your team from menial tasks and allow them to focus their energy and attention where creativity matters.
Review:
I rarely read books more than once, especially business or work related books. I don’t believe I’ve ever read the same book two times in a row. I’ve definitely never read the same book two times in a row, two days in a row. But I read Scrum four times in a row, in four days. It had such an impact on me I remember where I was when I first realized I needed to read it a second time–in a subway station in Tokyo, Japan. I finished the book, and immediately started it over again. Then did that two more times during my trip. I came back from Japan a changed entrepreneur.
Scrum is also one of the rare books I use every day. When it comes to other books, I may be reminded of something from them once in a while. But every day when I do my standing meeting via Slack with our managing director in Hong Kong, or with my partner in Arizona, I think of Scrum and how helpful it has been.
I didn’t stop by reading it myself. I bought a copy for every member of my team, asked them to read it by a certain deadline, and then we created a spreadsheet and had everyone enter in what they felt were the three most helpful parts of Scrum we could learn from at MWI. No, we’re not primarily a dev firm (although we do a lot), we’re a digital marketing agency doing SEO and content marketing and such, but we’ve found Scrum just as helpful there as anywhere else. Our standing meetings help keep everyone in the loop. Our account managers are the equivalent of product owners in scrum. Our project manager is the scrum master. We get stuff done. We get stuff done better. We get stuff done faster. If that’s what you want to see in your team or your business, read Scrum. Then read it again.
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