4 ms·

> Depends on the size of your team. Why does it depend on the size of your team? Teams involved in agile development (where they do the whole daily standup ker

by alxlaz 7y ago

> Depends on the size of your team. Why does it depend on the size of your team? Teams involved in agile development (where they do the whole daily standup kerfuffle) are supposed to not get to 10+ people. That's like the third thing on the agile coach's slide. Besides, why does it take a full-team standup to find out someone has expertise and ideas in an area that you didn't know about? Are the lead developers/managers sleeping at their desks? Guiding and bringing people together is one of the things they're paid for. They should know who's good at what, and steer the right people (or the right tasks) towards them. If they aren't doing their job, what the team needs is people who do, not one more thing that developers have to figure out on their own time. As for brainstorming -- it shouldn't be unexpected in the first place. Not on a regular basis, anyway. If a developer needs that brainstorming session, they should have the means to make it happen, with only the interested people attending. If they need it, but don't know they need it -- especially common, and especially excusable for junior developers -- that's why we have lead developers and managers. And meetings are not the only way to spread information! If a team has 10, 15 members or more and it's spreading information by word of mouth alone, whether 1:1 or in meetings, that's already a problem. At that point you should have things documented. New members should have an M that they can RTF and ask experienced team members about. If a team got to that size and the only way to spread information is in person, that's something they should remedy, not keep doing!

solidasparagus 7y ago
Lead developers and managers can't keep track of all the minutae that people have worked on in their careers. For a concrete example: if I track a performance problem down to a small part of an open-source piece of software, it isn't realistic for managers/lead developers to know if anyone on the team has experience with that piece of the software. But if I mention that in standup, it will immediately be clear if anyone has expertise that is valuable. I've never seen a high performing team that didn't regularly have ad-hoc brainstorming sessions (i.e. you say what you are planning to do and someone says "have you considered this"). Like I said, there are many runs to run a productive team, but standup can be a good place to start that discussion.
- alxlaz 7y ago
  > Lead developers and managers can't keep track of all the minutae that people have worked on in their careers. Keeping track of people's skills and expertise is part of their job description. If they don't, how are they going to help them develop and steer their careers? Not knowing every single thing they've worked on is one thing, but knowing (as in your example) who is likely to have used that piece of software, or who has experience troubleshooting performance problems involving that piece of software's functionality, is definitely their responsibility. > For a concrete example: if I track a performance problem down to a small part of an open-source piece of software, it isn't realistic for managers/lead developers to know if anyone on the team has experience with that piece of the software. Certainly -- but that doesn't justify having a stand-up meeting every day. It's not realistic for managers/lead devs to know if anyone on the team experience with a particular piece of software, but it is realistic for them -- or for any developer, for that matter -- to be able to find that out without dragging everyone from their desks for half an hour or more.
  - solidasparagus 7y ago
    It's a matter of effort for reward. I get the sense from you that you find standups to be miserable so any way to get rid of them is worthwhile, even if it's less efficient (and having managers/lead developers track who is working on what specific piece of software and organize conversations to make sure the right people are talking to each other is not efficient). In my experience, standup has almost no cost and is generally enjoyable - people typically like talking about what they are doing and getting thoughts/advice. But if your standups are "half an hour or more", they clearly don't have much in common with the standups I've done. I would propose that maybe the problem is your standups are poorly run, not that the concept itself is bad.
    - alxlaz 7y ago
      I find stand-ups pretty fun, too, but that's all -- and it's definitely not an experience that everyone finds enjoyable. We all like to talk about what we're doing. Some of us, myself included, gladly jump at every chance to do it, including stand-ups. Others, though, see the whole standup thing in terms that are closer to herding people into a meeting room and prodding them until they start talking. As for timing: if you have a 10- or 15-people team, allowing for even just two minutes per person -- which is barely enough to cover a non-trivial problem -- easily gets you to 20-30 minutes. It gets shorter if all updates are in the form of "no news is good news", but then the meeting could have just as easily been an email. It also gets shorter if the problems really are so trivial that fifteen people can describe all of them, and their solutions, in a couple of sentences, so that no one talks for more than 30 seconds -- but then are these problems really so big that you need to hold a meeting that everyone attends, every single day? I don't think the concept itself is bad -- just that the arguments for efficiency aren't convincing when it comes to large teams. I doubt that you can really disseminate useful information in this format, and even if you could, there are way more efficient ways to do that. Edit: If these meetings are held just to make sure all updates are given regularly, often, and in the open, with all the consequences this has (good ones, like everyone being on the same page, and bad ones, like opportunistic managers taking the chance to use this as a way to pressure their team), that's great, but let's be frank and admit it.

by alxlaz 7y ago

solidasparagus 7y ago

Lead developers and managers can't keep track of all the minutae that people have worked on in their careers. For a concrete example: if I track a performance problem down to a small part of an open-source piece of software, it isn't realistic for managers/lead developers to know if anyone on the team has experience with that piece of the software. But if I mention that in standup, it will immediately be clear if anyone has expertise that is valuable. I've never seen a high performing team that didn't regularly have ad-hoc brainstorming sessions (i.e. you say what you are planning to do and someone says "have you considered this"). Like I said, there are many runs to run a productive team, but standup can be a good place to start that discussion.

alxlaz 7y ago
> Lead developers and managers can't keep track of all the minutae that people have worked on in their careers. Keeping track of people's skills and expertise is part of their job description. If they don't, how are they going to help them develop and steer their careers? Not knowing every single thing they've worked on is one thing, but knowing (as in your example) who is likely to have used that piece of software, or who has experience troubleshooting performance problems involving that piece of software's functionality, is definitely their responsibility. > For a concrete example: if I track a performance problem down to a small part of an open-source piece of software, it isn't realistic for managers/lead developers to know if anyone on the team has experience with that piece of the software. Certainly -- but that doesn't justify having a stand-up meeting every day. It's not realistic for managers/lead devs to know if anyone on the team experience with a particular piece of software, but it is realistic for them -- or for any developer, for that matter -- to be able to find that out without dragging everyone from their desks for half an hour or more.
- solidasparagus 7y ago
  It's a matter of effort for reward. I get the sense from you that you find standups to be miserable so any way to get rid of them is worthwhile, even if it's less efficient (and having managers/lead developers track who is working on what specific piece of software and organize conversations to make sure the right people are talking to each other is not efficient). In my experience, standup has almost no cost and is generally enjoyable - people typically like talking about what they are doing and getting thoughts/advice. But if your standups are "half an hour or more", they clearly don't have much in common with the standups I've done. I would propose that maybe the problem is your standups are poorly run, not that the concept itself is bad.
  - alxlaz 7y ago
    I find stand-ups pretty fun, too, but that's all -- and it's definitely not an experience that everyone finds enjoyable. We all like to talk about what we're doing. Some of us, myself included, gladly jump at every chance to do it, including stand-ups. Others, though, see the whole standup thing in terms that are closer to herding people into a meeting room and prodding them until they start talking. As for timing: if you have a 10- or 15-people team, allowing for even just two minutes per person -- which is barely enough to cover a non-trivial problem -- easily gets you to 20-30 minutes. It gets shorter if all updates are in the form of "no news is good news", but then the meeting could have just as easily been an email. It also gets shorter if the problems really are so trivial that fifteen people can describe all of them, and their solutions, in a couple of sentences, so that no one talks for more than 30 seconds -- but then are these problems really so big that you need to hold a meeting that everyone attends, every single day? I don't think the concept itself is bad -- just that the arguments for efficiency aren't convincing when it comes to large teams. I doubt that you can really disseminate useful information in this format, and even if you could, there are way more efficient ways to do that. Edit: If these meetings are held just to make sure all updates are given regularly, often, and in the open, with all the consequences this has (good ones, like everyone being on the same page, and bad ones, like opportunistic managers taking the chance to use this as a way to pressure their team), that's great, but let's be frank and admit it.