Mario Cardinal - Executable Specifications with Scrum: A Practical Guide to Agile Requirements Discovery

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A Practical Guide to Agile Requirements Discovery

Mario Cardinal

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013939927

Copyright 2014 Pearson Education, Inc.

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ISBN-13: 978-0-32-178413-1

ISBN-10: 0-32-178413-8

Text printed in the United States on recycled paper at Courier in Westford, Massachusetts.

First printing, July 2013

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This is a great book that demonstrates the value of putting effort behind requirements in an Agile environment, including both the business and technical value. The book is well-written and flows nicely, approachable for both the manager and the developer. I am recommending this book to all Scrum teams who need to integrate business analysts and architects as active teammates.

Stephen Forte, Chief Strategy Officer at Telerik and Board Member at the Scrum Alliance

Cardinals book brings to light one of the most important and neglected aspects of Scrum: Having user stories that are ready to sprint. Teams often complain about this, and the author offers practical advice on how to get it done right!

Steffan Surdek, co-author of A Practical Guide to Distributed Scrum

Executable Specifications with Scrum doesnt shine through its depth but its breadth. This compendium of proven agile practices describes an overarching process spike touching important aspects of product development in a cohesive way. In this compact book, Mario Cardinal clearly explains how he achieves a validated value stream by applying agile practices around executable specifications.

Ralph Jocham, Founder of agile consulting company effective agile. and Europes first Professional Scrum Master Trainer for Scrum.org

Cardinal provides deep insights into techniques and practices that drive effective agile teams. As a practitioner of the craft Cardinal describes, I now have a written guide to share with those who ask, What is this [ATDD/BDD/TDD/Executable Specification/etc] thing all about? Regardless of the name de jour, Cardinal gives us what works.

David Starr, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Visual Studio

Scrum is barely a process, only a framework. It is a tool, and you have to provide many complementary practices to reach true business agility. This book is perfect for teams that are using Scrum and want to learn about or get started with executable specifications.

Vincent Tenc and Franois Beauregard, Scrum Trainers at Pyxis Technologies

This book maps out the important place of specifications in an agile landscape to the benefit of agilists of all roles.

Erik LeBel, Technology and Development Consultant at Pyxis Technologies

To my four outstanding children:
Dominic, Lea-Marie, Romane, and Michael.

There is a wide range of books that have been written about specifications. Unfortunately, most of them are not useful for software development teams. These books rely on traditional engineering practices. They assume requirements are known upfront and, once specified, will not change for the duration of the project. And if changes happen, they presume they will be minor, so they could be tracked with a change management process. They promote a sequential process starting with a distinct requirements phase that delivers a detailed requirements specification before starting to design and build the product.