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I’ve seen standups with 20 people where 2 or 3 talked for more than 10 minutes. That’s not what it’s meant to be. While I would also like to do the daily statu

I’ve seen standups with 20 people where 2 or 3 talked for more than 10 minutes. That’s not what it’s meant to be. While I would also like to do the daily status email, I see value in doing a synchronized standup. It helps planning for the day. Not all people are great communicators and I’ve seen lots of developers spend days on tasks which should take 1 or 2 hours max. Standups highlight these issues, but you need to listen and go to these people in private to understand their problems. And you should absolutely take up people if they offer to help you. I tend to bring pen and paper to remember what I wanted to say and to note when I here something that’s relevant to me.

diamondo25 7y ago
Standups with more than 6 people will already create a meeting of at least an hour. I mean, standups help is small teams to keep everyone excited (if you all agree on it!), and nobody likes meetings, so if it looks like a meeting and people need a 'token' to speak, then the point of the get-together is already far gone. Why not join the meetup with afterwork drinks? That way you can really say what blocked you ánd talk about the things that you'd do in a standup...
- dagw 7y ago
  Why not join the meetup with afterwork drinks? Mandatory after work 'fun' can be highly controversial.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  > Why not join the meetup with afterwork drinks? That excludes certain segments of your workforce in ways that make HR sweat. Parents, alcoholics, people of faith... you've made attending the meetup more difficult.
- antisemiotic 7y ago
  So the way to fix dysfunctional meetings is not to split them into manageable sizes, but rather shift them into some sort of impromptu unpaid overtime, and bribe your staff with alcohol in hopes that they won't notice?
- javagram 7y ago
  > Standups with more than 6 people will already create a meeting of at least an hour. Not my experience, teams of that size I’ve been on do standup in 10-15 minutes.
EdwardDiego 7y ago
> I’ve seen standups with 20 people where 2 or 3 talked for more than 10 minutes. Did the scrum master not feel able to intercede? Protect the process etc.
- LunaSea 7y ago
  The scrum master shouldn't exist.
  - EdwardDiego 7y ago
    I agree, when the team is working, everyone's a scrum master :)
  - turk73 7y ago
    Agreed. Scrum master is the mostly useless role yet. I have had two in a row now that were just a waste of time to even have to deal with. I am constantly having to explain what we're doing so that he feels he's included, but yet he has zero clue technically. At one job, the scrum master was an angry lesbian who used her minor role to browbeat me at every opportunity possibly because I'm part of the white, cis power structure or whatever. Talk about delusional! I'm no more privileged than anyone else, quite frankly. It was her and her "wife" (yeah, downvote away you stupid idiots--I have traditional beliefs about marriage, so sue me). Anyways, here SO was the HR director and so nobody could say a damn thing. Hope they go out of business, they deserve it. Anyways, yeah, I haven't had a good experience with anyone titled "scrum master" at any point in the last decade and the latest few have been real gems. I hope agile goes away completely. It has become nothing but another top down control mechanism to squeeze more work out of people who are already overworked. I fucking hate what it has become. There was a brief time when agile and agile practices were like a breath of fresh air. Now the slave drivers have taken it back for themselves.
sandos 7y ago
Its highly dependent on personality of course, but Ive also seen this. A person that REALLY likes to talk for 10 minutes about details... which nobody really cares about. He even understood that it was not what anyone else wanted, but he thought "the standup is useless unless I get to say something elaborate and long-winded!" He could not understand that "I had not trouble yesterday, and today I will keep going on my task" could be a useful update to the team. I mean, in general it isn't but when something unexpexcted happens you are supposed to say it, not something unique for every day. 90% of my dailies are basically: "I am still working on X, and its moving forward, continuing today".

diamondo25 7y ago

Standups with more than 6 people will already create a meeting of at least an hour. I mean, standups help is small teams to keep everyone excited (if you all agree on it!), and nobody likes meetings, so if it looks like a meeting and people need a 'token' to speak, then the point of the get-together is already far gone. Why not join the meetup with afterwork drinks? That way you can really say what blocked you ánd talk about the things that you'd do in a standup...

dagw 7y ago
Why not join the meetup with afterwork drinks? Mandatory after work 'fun' can be highly controversial.
EdwardDiego 7y ago
> Why not join the meetup with afterwork drinks? That excludes certain segments of your workforce in ways that make HR sweat. Parents, alcoholics, people of faith... you've made attending the meetup more difficult.
antisemiotic 7y ago
So the way to fix dysfunctional meetings is not to split them into manageable sizes, but rather shift them into some sort of impromptu unpaid overtime, and bribe your staff with alcohol in hopes that they won't notice?
javagram 7y ago
> Standups with more than 6 people will already create a meeting of at least an hour. Not my experience, teams of that size I’ve been on do standup in 10-15 minutes.

EdwardDiego 7y ago

> I’ve seen standups with 20 people where 2 or 3 talked for more than 10 minutes. Did the scrum master not feel able to intercede? Protect the process etc.

LunaSea 7y ago
The scrum master shouldn't exist.
- EdwardDiego 7y ago
  I agree, when the team is working, everyone's a scrum master :)
- turk73 7y ago
  Agreed. Scrum master is the mostly useless role yet. I have had two in a row now that were just a waste of time to even have to deal with. I am constantly having to explain what we're doing so that he feels he's included, but yet he has zero clue technically. At one job, the scrum master was an angry lesbian who used her minor role to browbeat me at every opportunity possibly because I'm part of the white, cis power structure or whatever. Talk about delusional! I'm no more privileged than anyone else, quite frankly. It was her and her "wife" (yeah, downvote away you stupid idiots--I have traditional beliefs about marriage, so sue me). Anyways, here SO was the HR director and so nobody could say a damn thing. Hope they go out of business, they deserve it. Anyways, yeah, I haven't had a good experience with anyone titled "scrum master" at any point in the last decade and the latest few have been real gems. I hope agile goes away completely. It has become nothing but another top down control mechanism to squeeze more work out of people who are already overworked. I fucking hate what it has become. There was a brief time when agile and agile practices were like a breath of fresh air. Now the slave drivers have taken it back for themselves.

sandos 7y ago

Its highly dependent on personality of course, but Ive also seen this. A person that REALLY likes to talk for 10 minutes about details... which nobody really cares about. He even understood that it was not what anyone else wanted, but he thought "the standup is useless unless I get to say something elaborate and long-winded!" He could not understand that "I had not trouble yesterday, and today I will keep going on my task" could be a useful update to the team. I mean, in general it isn't but when something unexpexcted happens you are supposed to say it, not something unique for every day. 90% of my dailies are basically: "I am still working on X, and its moving forward, continuing today".