Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time

Jeff Sutherland · J.J. Sutherland

Sep 2014 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by J.J. Sutherland

About this audiobook

The revolutionary “Red Book” that helped a generation work smarter, better, and faster—now expanded and updated with new stories, new ideas, and new methods to radically improve the way you and your company deliver results

If you’ve ever been startled by how fast the world is changing, the Scrum framework is one of the reasons why. Productivity gains in workflow of as much as 1,200 percent have been recorded, and there’s no more lucid—or compelling—explainer of Scrum and its bright promise than Jeff Sutherland. The thorny problem that Sutherland began tackling back then boils down to this: People are spectacularly bad at doing things with agility and efficiency. Best-laid plans go up in smoke. Teams often work at cross-purposes to one another. And when the pressure rises, unhappiness soars.

Woven with insights from martial arts, judicial decision making, advanced aerial combat, robotics, and Sutherland’s experience as a West Point–educated fighter pilot, a biometrics expert, a medical researcher, an early innovator of ATM technology, and a C-level executive at eleven different technology companies, this book will take you to Scrum’s front lines, where Sutherland’s system has brought the FBI into the twenty-first century, helped support John Deere’s supply chain amid a global pandemic and supply chain shortage, reduced poverty in the Third World, and even planned weddings and accomplished weekend chores.

The way we work has changed dramatically since Sutherland first introduced Scrum a decade ago. This urgent update shares new insights and provides new tools to take advantage of the radical productivity that Scrum delivers. Sutherland will show you how to optimize working with artificial intelligence and share the latest cognitive science research on culture, psychological safety, diversity, and happiness, and how these factors drive performance, innovation, and overall organizational health.

This new edition contains a decade of lessons learned. Whether it’s ten years ago, now, or ten years into the future, the Scrum framework is guaranteed to help you deliver results. But the most important reason to read this book is that it may just help you achieve what others consider unachievable.

Ratings and reviews

I have been working in an agile environment for several years and this book has helped me to see where we are doing things right and were we are doing things wrong. I really like the use of real world scenerios to drive home the point that scrum works really well when used properly.

About the author

Jeff Sutherland is currently the CEO of Scrum, Inc. and Senior Adviser to OpenView Venture Partners where he coaches venture-funded companies.  One of the original signers of the Agile Manifesto and a father of the Scrum movement, he travels the world conducting training and speaking.  You can find him at www.scruminc.com.