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I used to do this, and then we "switched to be more agile." (This just meant using JIRA and tracking sprint efficiency wrong). Companies do think "It’s your re

by uxp100 7y ago

I used to do this, and then we "switched to be more agile." (This just meant using JIRA and tracking sprint efficiency wrong). Companies do think "It’s your responsibility to be on top of whatever’s going on in your field" and they might even claim that learning and development on the job is important, but when it comes time to log JIRA hours, they tend to show how much they really believe in this.

hamandcheese 7y ago
Maybe make tickets for your learning activities?
- uxp100 7y ago
  Heh, would not go over well. Now that we have JIRA, tickets are not just watched by my boss, but my bosses boss, my bosses bosses boss, and a few dedicated project managers of some kind.
  - kedean 7y ago
    Yuck. When my company started pushing for more "agility" and my team moved to a sprint structure, I was lucky enough to have personal leverage as a senior team member. Early on I made it clear that tickets and sprints exclusively exist for the team to plan and manage expectations, and that I wasn't going to hold with upper management using them as leverage over anybody. To support that, I had to interrupt stand-ups a few times when someone would start iterating through tickets for progress instead of letting people report. I wish misuse of these tools wasn't so widespread, but it was to be expected.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Use code words.
  - ShroudedNight 7y ago
    > ...tickets are not just watched by my boss, but my bosses boss, my bosses bosses boss... Are all these people really hired for their competency? The amount of wasted time this describes is staggering. Even at the worst of times, ticket interaction by even a skip-level was a sign of mounting org-wide desperation.
percentcer 7y ago
If you want to track this through JIRA you need to make time for both learning and teaching. I've found that mgmt is reluctant to allow for "a day of learning", but if the output of that is a document or a small seminar where you can share that knowledge with the team it goes down much more easily.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  It also takes all the fun out of it. I can’t properly get my mind in a state to learn if I’m going to be held accountable for how much I pick up.
  - chmod775 7y ago
    > I can’t properly get my mind in a state to learn if I’m going to be held accountable for how much I pick up. That is school and university in a nutshell though.
hnick 7y ago
We didn't use JIRA (very much a NIH-company with our own job tracker) but we always had a job number to log training/learning hours against. IIRC, management actually questioned people who didn't log much time on it. There were a lot of problems at this place but I liked that.
samcodes 7y ago
“using JIRA and tracking sprint efficiency wrong” is the working definition of agile at most companies AFAICT. This makes me sad. I had a great experience with what I now think of as “authentic agile” at my second job, now I doubt I’ll ever get to do things that way ever again.

by uxp100 7y ago

hamandcheese 7y ago

Maybe make tickets for your learning activities?

uxp100 7y ago
Heh, would not go over well. Now that we have JIRA, tickets are not just watched by my boss, but my bosses boss, my bosses bosses boss, and a few dedicated project managers of some kind.
- kedean 7y ago
  Yuck. When my company started pushing for more "agility" and my team moved to a sprint structure, I was lucky enough to have personal leverage as a senior team member. Early on I made it clear that tickets and sprints exclusively exist for the team to plan and manage expectations, and that I wasn't going to hold with upper management using them as leverage over anybody. To support that, I had to interrupt stand-ups a few times when someone would start iterating through tickets for progress instead of letting people report. I wish misuse of these tools wasn't so widespread, but it was to be expected.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Use code words.
- ShroudedNight 7y ago
  > ...tickets are not just watched by my boss, but my bosses boss, my bosses bosses boss... Are all these people really hired for their competency? The amount of wasted time this describes is staggering. Even at the worst of times, ticket interaction by even a skip-level was a sign of mounting org-wide desperation.

percentcer 7y ago

If you want to track this through JIRA you need to make time for both learning and teaching. I've found that mgmt is reluctant to allow for "a day of learning", but if the output of that is a document or a small seminar where you can share that knowledge with the team it goes down much more easily.

Aeolun 7y ago
It also takes all the fun out of it. I can’t properly get my mind in a state to learn if I’m going to be held accountable for how much I pick up.
- chmod775 7y ago
  > I can’t properly get my mind in a state to learn if I’m going to be held accountable for how much I pick up. That is school and university in a nutshell though.

hnick 7y ago

We didn't use JIRA (very much a NIH-company with our own job tracker) but we always had a job number to log training/learning hours against. IIRC, management actually questioned people who didn't log much time on it. There were a lot of problems at this place but I liked that.

samcodes 7y ago

“using JIRA and tracking sprint efficiency wrong” is the working definition of agile at most companies AFAICT. This makes me sad. I had a great experience with what I now think of as “authentic agile” at my second job, now I doubt I’ll ever get to do things that way ever again.