I’m drilling deep into the Scrum framework right now. It’s about agile work that swings from sprint to sprint, constantly creating “increments.” An increment isn’t something disgusting — it’s a puzzle piece that eventually forms the complete picture.
But unlike traditional approaches where results only become visible at the end after an exhausting final phase, Scrum is about presentable, “finished” partial results.
Scrum originally comes from software development. An increment here is a piece of software that might even stand alone as a “Minimal Viable Product” (MVP). But it doesn’t have to. The team concentrates on the parts that create the most value and advance the product idea most efficiently.
Once the increment is done — a sprint lasts at most one month — the team plans the next steps. These can look completely different from what everyone thought before. This way the team crawls toward better products in less time.
There’s much more to write about Scrum. Right now I find it particularly interesting to lift Scrum out of the IT environment. What might Scrum for authors look like?
Still planning — or already writing?
It used to be like this: You want to write a book, think through the plot, collect all the important elements, and then eventually you have an outline and start. After that it’s one long black tunnel, from which many want to tear open the pages and get back to the light after a short time.
Many give up because an author’s life isn’t particularly glamorous and the work is hard. That’s the traditional way to write a book.
How could it work differently if you wrote a book from sprint to sprint, creating increments that stand alone and ultimately form the book?
From tweet to book
The trick is good planning and courage to change. It’s clear your book will ultimately look different from what you imagined at the beginning. But it always was that way.
How about starting with a tweet (that you should never send)?
1. Tweet — Your story in 120 characters: If you can tell your book idea in 120 characters or less, you’re a good step further. This could be your first work increment.
2. Blog posts — Digesting research results in writing: Now it depends on whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction. If you need to research a lot, you can digest your results in short blog posts (or podcasts). Share only the essence — you’ll go into more detail in the book later. The blog posts are ultimately already small mini-chapters or detailed outlines in your book.
3. Short stories — Testing the story: If you want to write a novel, try writing a short story first. You don’t necessarily have to publish it, but you’ll get a better feel for whether your book idea works for a longer book. It’s possible that a much better idea occurs to you while writing. That’s exactly what agile working is about.
To move forward quickly here, you can also simply dictate your short story. Probably a first rough version is enough. You’ll quickly notice what fits, what needs to be different, and where you need to build.
4. The book — From short to long: Everyone works differently here. In non-fiction, you can work agilely by not swinging from chapter to chapter, but writing the most important “heart” chapters first. In many non-fiction books, authors often only get to the point halfway through.
Which three chapters are the most important ones where you can really contribute something new? Work on those first. Maybe you won’t need the rest then? For fiction books, it makes sense to write chapter by chapter, naturally.
Scrum is always about “timeboxing.” Maybe you plan one chapter in one month. Suppose you finish the chapter after three weeks. What now? If you want to sprint for a month, stick to it. Use the remaining week to polish the chapter.
In Scrum there’s the “Definition of Done.” Think about when a chapter is really finished for you. After the chapter you can then think carefully about how the book should continue. The book might develop quite differently than planned, and you should allow that.
This note is also an “increment.” I gave myself half an hour to write this. This note will then be the foundation for a longer note that might result in a sellable little e-book.
I don’t know yet how long the sprints will be, but I want to document my progress in “sprint reviews.” I’m curious.
The German original lives at reinergaertner.de, my blog since before most of the internet existed (1997). Translation: AI. Quality control: me, squinting. Apologies in advance.