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I'm Old Expert Programmer Dude now, so I get to tell stories. 1. Worked with a team of outside experts once. We were brought in to stand up an internal team of

I'm Old Expert Programmer Dude now, so I get to tell stories. 1. Worked with a team of outside experts once. We were brought in to stand up an internal team of coaches. The first week there, the four of us got together. I asked "Do we want to do standups?" Another coach said nope, we're professionals! What do we need standups for? The rest of us met every morning for breakfast. No standing up, no meeting. But we knew what we had to cover in between shooting the crap. We did well. He did not. 2. Worked with another team once who were doing some gnarly embedded work. The lead, a super-smart C++ guy, announced that he wasn't going to do standups because he was a professional (see a pattern here?) and could communicate just fine without tossing a football around. He finally came. Every morning the team would have fun with the nerf ball (which is just something fun to toss around. Who cares if you have one or not?) When it was his turn, everybody stopped smiling and somebody put the little football on the ground at his feet. Then he spoke. He never did touch the nerf ball. I was trying to help them do mocks and rapid hardware prototyping, but he wasn't getting it. Finally one day, just after the standup, somebody said something like "You know John, if we did this thing like this, we could work a lot faster" He said he hadn't thought of that (even though multiple people had suggested it. It just wasn't phrased the right way for some reason) and agreed to start right away. I smiled as he left and asked him "Wasn't that a great standup!" "Nope. Could've had that conversation just the same without the stupid meeting" Yes, you could have. But you didn't. Communication is weird. There are no big, flashing red lights when you fuck it up. And when it works, it doesn't feel like anything has happened. So when people want to do things differently, I always encourage it. If they focus on the goal, they'll come back to these lessons. If they focus on the ritual, however, it'll never ever make any sense to them. (And they very well may end up making life miserable on everybody around them)

aunty_helen 8y ago
>see a pattern here? Yes, the pattern is arrogance. >And when it works, it doesn't feel like anything has happened Exactly, which is why it's so hard to keep people on board when all is going well. The meetings start seeming like a waste of time and then you end up falling into cyclic relearning traps. Good chat though, I'm sure most people who have been SMs will have similar stories.
watwut 8y ago
> The rest of us met every morning for breakfast. No standing up, no meeting. But we knew what we had to cover in between shooting the crap. We did well. He did not. Basically, since the other guy did not wanted standup you intentionally left him out of loop and communicated only among yourself during breakfast. If there was ever ugly politics, it is this one. > He finally came. Every morning the team would have fun with the nerf ball (which is just something fun to toss around. Who cares if you have one or not?) When it was his turn, everybody stopped smiling and somebody put the little football on the ground at his feet. Then he spoke. He never did touch the nerf ball. Frankly, I really don't want to work in environment you and your friends are creating. Regardless of whether I enjoy the process you are pushing for, I don't want to work with people who intentionally sabotage people they disagree with - and then brag about it. If there is something called inability to work with different people, this right here is it. The pattern I see here is that your colleges are intentionally toxic to those who don't share their preferences and then blame victims. You refused to communicate like adults resorting to passive aggression, not your opposition.
- GVIrish 8y ago
  Maybe they were being toxic, but it simply seems like they took a little time in the morning to go over things and he chose not to join them. So what should they have done, each staged separate little talks with him to go over everything that was discussed in their morning meetings? Compile meeting notes and send them to him? It doesn't sound so much like sabotage as it does that he chose to put his head down and eschew the meeting and struggled because of it.
  - watwut 8y ago
    No, of course not. "We are having coordination meeting at <insert reasinable time and place>" announcement is already fine. Just starting standup when everyone is in office even if he disagree is fine too. The time and place here seem juuuuust coincide with time and place he is least likely to be at. Standups are not supposed to be passive aggresive way to enforce early coming to work either (most coders have flexible time, your process should honor that) nor are they supposed to prevent you to have breakfast with familly or alone in home. And yes, if collegue does nor know info he needs for work, I would tell it to him even if he clearly missed it by his own mistake. I would also tell him that he don't know info because he ignores meetings he should be at. Transparency and open discussion, basically. Otherwise said, you solve it like any other disagreement over something that requires coordination.

aunty_helen 8y ago

>see a pattern here? Yes, the pattern is arrogance. >And when it works, it doesn't feel like anything has happened Exactly, which is why it's so hard to keep people on board when all is going well. The meetings start seeming like a waste of time and then you end up falling into cyclic relearning traps. Good chat though, I'm sure most people who have been SMs will have similar stories.

watwut 8y ago

> The rest of us met every morning for breakfast. No standing up, no meeting. But we knew what we had to cover in between shooting the crap. We did well. He did not. Basically, since the other guy did not wanted standup you intentionally left him out of loop and communicated only among yourself during breakfast. If there was ever ugly politics, it is this one. > He finally came. Every morning the team would have fun with the nerf ball (which is just something fun to toss around. Who cares if you have one or not?) When it was his turn, everybody stopped smiling and somebody put the little football on the ground at his feet. Then he spoke. He never did touch the nerf ball. Frankly, I really don't want to work in environment you and your friends are creating. Regardless of whether I enjoy the process you are pushing for, I don't want to work with people who intentionally sabotage people they disagree with - and then brag about it. If there is something called inability to work with different people, this right here is it. The pattern I see here is that your colleges are intentionally toxic to those who don't share their preferences and then blame victims. You refused to communicate like adults resorting to passive aggression, not your opposition.

GVIrish 8y ago
Maybe they were being toxic, but it simply seems like they took a little time in the morning to go over things and he chose not to join them. So what should they have done, each staged separate little talks with him to go over everything that was discussed in their morning meetings? Compile meeting notes and send them to him? It doesn't sound so much like sabotage as it does that he chose to put his head down and eschew the meeting and struggled because of it.
- watwut 8y ago
  No, of course not. "We are having coordination meeting at <insert reasinable time and place>" announcement is already fine. Just starting standup when everyone is in office even if he disagree is fine too. The time and place here seem juuuuust coincide with time and place he is least likely to be at. Standups are not supposed to be passive aggresive way to enforce early coming to work either (most coders have flexible time, your process should honor that) nor are they supposed to prevent you to have breakfast with familly or alone in home. And yes, if collegue does nor know info he needs for work, I would tell it to him even if he clearly missed it by his own mistake. I would also tell him that he don't know info because he ignores meetings he should be at. Transparency and open discussion, basically. Otherwise said, you solve it like any other disagreement over something that requires coordination.