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With a visual system like Kanban, it's quite easy to see what other people are working on. The problem I have with daily syncs is that it's redundant to informa

With a visual system like Kanban, it's quite easy to see what other people are working on. The problem I have with daily syncs is that it's redundant to information already available, and you're forcing people to "meet" without any value. A lot of conversations in that "sync" are just noise to a majority of participants. It's kind of like a bunch of people talking to a wall unless you happen to be associated directly with the update – which is more rare. In my experience, the need is to provide a clear method of communication and ability to unblock one another. A Kanban board is perfect for this, as well as committing to a definition of done. Anything else... is very wasteful in my experience.

opportune 7y ago
For me, what is in a Kanban board is not enough info to be able to determine when I can help unblock other people on my team. I think this probably depends on how you use project-management software and what your team works on; for me, a teammate's item might list "Create pipeline to process dataset Y on hourly basis". If they are running into issues, I don't know if it's something I've seen before with that dataset, or that pipeline tech, or the processing script, or end-to-end latency, or XYZ. A standup helps clarify things somewhat Also if a teammate is actively working on something that is a downstream dependency of something I am working on, then I can passively learn about requirements and expectations for my own work, become aware of issues ahead of time, etc.
- dfischer 7y ago
  Initial reaction: 1. For transparency any member of the team can identify blockers in Kanban by putting them in the blocked column. 2. If you're blocked, and running into issues, you'd reach out to anyone that can help you. Why would you wait for a standup or "talk to the wall" for that? Just be proactive. Dependencies should be known before committing to a scope of work (iteration) with the team. Planning stage (minimal time investment for scope of work definition) vs committed work stage (in progress iteration).

opportune 7y ago

For me, what is in a Kanban board is not enough info to be able to determine when I can help unblock other people on my team. I think this probably depends on how you use project-management software and what your team works on; for me, a teammate's item might list "Create pipeline to process dataset Y on hourly basis". If they are running into issues, I don't know if it's something I've seen before with that dataset, or that pipeline tech, or the processing script, or end-to-end latency, or XYZ. A standup helps clarify things somewhat Also if a teammate is actively working on something that is a downstream dependency of something I am working on, then I can passively learn about requirements and expectations for my own work, become aware of issues ahead of time, etc.

dfischer 7y ago
Initial reaction: 1. For transparency any member of the team can identify blockers in Kanban by putting them in the blocked column. 2. If you're blocked, and running into issues, you'd reach out to anyone that can help you. Why would you wait for a standup or "talk to the wall" for that? Just be proactive. Dependencies should be known before committing to a scope of work (iteration) with the team. Planning stage (minimal time investment for scope of work definition) vs committed work stage (in progress iteration).