I think you'd need to experience the flow of a place like Pivotal before passing judgement. I find it interesting that you've immediately jumped to "good vs.

I think you'd need to experience the flow of a place like Pivotal before passing judgement. I find it interesting that you've immediately jumped to "good vs. bad engineers". The mindset at Pivotal tends to be that all engineers are equal. There is no good or bad. This is why they rotate pairs. Checking in with a pair isn't a status update, it's really about collaboration and visibility. Estimates are often wrong, assumptions get tested, the team dynamic is "let's ensure we all understand this". Stories in tracker tend to be <1 day, so checking in occasionally isn't exactly a wrong thing (every half day to me is excessive), so priorities can be shifted, or big stories can be broken up.