3 ms·

This is anecdotal, but I've found that the more "agile" a place is, the more underworked I am. In most non-agile places, if im out of work its up to me to find

This is anecdotal, but I've found that the more "agile" a place is, the more underworked I am. In most non-agile places, if im out of work its up to me to find a way to make myself useful (agency!), but in agile environments I usually am told not to take something on because "it wont fit in the sprint". I generally think agiles main benefit is bringing the low performers up to average, but at the cost of handcuffing your top performers.

shanemhansen 10y ago
> bringing the low performers up to average, but at the cost of handcuffing your top performers. Sounds about right. If you view humans as interchangeable resources then predictable performance is good. Most businesses don't need or benefit from a Linus Torvalds to build their CRUD app.
- overgard 10y ago
  Sadly true, although weirdly given most companies hiring practices they apparently think they need Linus to build their facebook for cats app.
pdelbarba 10y ago
When I worked with a bigger agile group one of the things I liked was having a task list put together and then divided up among everyone but also having an 'on-deck' group for stuff we didn't think we'd have time for. Anyone who got things done faster would have their pick of the on deck work and was some extra freedom and recognition for doing so.
- overgard 10y ago
  Its a nice idea in theory, but generally ive found these reserve backlogs are full of things nobody actually wants to do, they just think itd be vaguely nice if someone else did it. Its either stuff with no direct business value (refactor the flargenstock), or high-risk/low reward work
  - pdelbarba 10y ago
    Yea, I think you have to do it well. In general for us it was either fun extra features that product management wasn't super excited about or stuff that was just planned for later.
scruple 10y ago
Ugh, I deal with this, too. "It won't fit in to the current sprint." Who cares? Nothing bad is going to happen! I just take them anyway and take people to task to explain why this is a worse situation than my salary burning up while I do nothing instead.

shanemhansen 10y ago

> bringing the low performers up to average, but at the cost of handcuffing your top performers. Sounds about right. If you view humans as interchangeable resources then predictable performance is good. Most businesses don't need or benefit from a Linus Torvalds to build their CRUD app.

overgard 10y ago
Sadly true, although weirdly given most companies hiring practices they apparently think they need Linus to build their facebook for cats app.

pdelbarba 10y ago

When I worked with a bigger agile group one of the things I liked was having a task list put together and then divided up among everyone but also having an 'on-deck' group for stuff we didn't think we'd have time for. Anyone who got things done faster would have their pick of the on deck work and was some extra freedom and recognition for doing so.

overgard 10y ago
Its a nice idea in theory, but generally ive found these reserve backlogs are full of things nobody actually wants to do, they just think itd be vaguely nice if someone else did it. Its either stuff with no direct business value (refactor the flargenstock), or high-risk/low reward work
- pdelbarba 10y ago
  Yea, I think you have to do it well. In general for us it was either fun extra features that product management wasn't super excited about or stuff that was just planned for later.

scruple 10y ago

Ugh, I deal with this, too. "It won't fit in to the current sprint." Who cares? Nothing bad is going to happen! I just take them anyway and take people to task to explain why this is a worse situation than my salary burning up while I do nothing instead.