4 ms·

I know PMs that have meetings amongst themselves calling them "scrum" meetings. I suppose it's no worse than a department of programmers that named itself somet

I know PMs that have meetings amongst themselves calling them "scrum" meetings. I suppose it's no worse than a department of programmers that named itself something that is also a field of math without being aware of it.

MattGaiser 6y ago
> I know PMs that have meetings amongst themselves As a developer, I love those kinds of meetings.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  Developers aren't invited to those meetings.
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    Exactly.
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      ...but I'm not a developer.
      - MattGaiser 6y ago
        Have fun in your meetings.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      You actually want to be on those, because that's where half of the nonsense comes from that you then have to deal with on the job.
      - duncan_bayne 6y ago
        True client story, heavily anonymised: I was representing my client at a meeting with a third party with which they were planning to integrate. Financial systems and many zeroes were involved. It became apparent early in the call that although we were talking in some detail about integrating two complex and complicated systems, no-one on the call was a developer (except myself, lapsed). It had never occurred to me that the powers that be might do that. Next time (and from then on) there were developers involved, at least from our side.
        tomelders 6y ago
        Managers just want to be able to make software without those pesky developers getting in the way.
        chiefalchemist 6y ago
        Classic. Yet when projects fail it's IT that gets the blame. Not to say IT is without fault sometimes. But IT based projects fail because everyone else failed to acknowledge it was an IT project. Effectively talking when they should have been listening.
        MattGaiser 6y ago
        You missed a big opportunity to create your own “Project Rescue” outfit for when the project inevitably fell apart.
      - MattGaiser 6y ago
        It depends. I can see myself getting exhausted of arguing and explaining and then having to deal with it anyway.
    - hoorayimhelping 6y ago
      Engineers: >what are these requirements? Where the hell does product come up with this crap? This is so unrealistic and just explaining why will take 15 minutes! What is the deal, why can't we just get aligned? Product is so stupid. Also engineers: >have fun in your product only meeting, dorks. I'm a programmer, and we HATE meetings cause of programming and stuff.
noir_lord 6y ago
Ah, you mean "Scrum of Scrums" where the people with at best half a clue lose that half. I distinctly dislike my job (and am looking elsewhere, interview monday).
- Xylakant 6y ago
  Scrum - as pretty much everything - is bad when it’s done bad and can be good when it’s done good. I’ve seen both: 30 minutes of SoS where you’d wish for a pure caffeine infusion just to keep your eyelids up and daily SoS meetings with representatives from about 15 teams which were quickly adjourned most of the days when no cross cutting concerns needed coordination. It all hinges on the person responsible for the meeting.
  - noir_lord 6y ago
    Shrugs, I don't have the authority to fix the problems yet I'm responsible for the fallout - hence I'm leaving as soon as possible. If you have a broken process the developers with options will leave, what is left is the developers who are either stuck for family reasons or simply unemployable elsewhere - a few years later you wonder why a simple change takes a week and a half and breaks things that should be totally unrelated and blame the process, so you do workflow re-org number #27 to see if you can fix it. It's hard to explain to a more senior manager that they are in fact the problem.
- 2sk21 6y ago
  I used to dread the weekly scrum-of-scrums when I was a squad lead at IBM. Everyone used to recite their lines and yet none of the presented information ever seemed to register in people's minds. I would often get calls right after the scrum-of-scrums asking about exactly the things I had just presented
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    Scrum really just seems like a massive reporting framework, except that instead of written reports they have oral reports, which is basically just the same as having the server logs print to a speaker. You might get something useful if you’re around to hear it and are interested in that particular thing at that particular time, but otherwise it’s just a lot of background noise.
sharken 6y ago
PMs having meetings amongst themselves doesn’t sound that productive, one of my favorite expressions to that effect is “This problem can’t be fixed by talking”, e.g. a developer is required. Some non-developers are good people though ;)
dev_tty01 6y ago
They just need to "manage harder."

MattGaiser 6y ago

> I know PMs that have meetings amongst themselves As a developer, I love those kinds of meetings.

perl4ever 6y ago
Developers aren't invited to those meetings.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  Exactly.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    ...but I'm not a developer.
    - MattGaiser 6y ago
      Have fun in your meetings.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    You actually want to be on those, because that's where half of the nonsense comes from that you then have to deal with on the job.
    - duncan_bayne 6y ago
      True client story, heavily anonymised: I was representing my client at a meeting with a third party with which they were planning to integrate. Financial systems and many zeroes were involved. It became apparent early in the call that although we were talking in some detail about integrating two complex and complicated systems, no-one on the call was a developer (except myself, lapsed). It had never occurred to me that the powers that be might do that. Next time (and from then on) there were developers involved, at least from our side.
      - tomelders 6y ago
        Managers just want to be able to make software without those pesky developers getting in the way.
      - chiefalchemist 6y ago
        Classic. Yet when projects fail it's IT that gets the blame. Not to say IT is without fault sometimes. But IT based projects fail because everyone else failed to acknowledge it was an IT project. Effectively talking when they should have been listening.
      - MattGaiser 6y ago
        You missed a big opportunity to create your own “Project Rescue” outfit for when the project inevitably fell apart.
    - MattGaiser 6y ago
      It depends. I can see myself getting exhausted of arguing and explaining and then having to deal with it anyway.
  - hoorayimhelping 6y ago
    Engineers: >what are these requirements? Where the hell does product come up with this crap? This is so unrealistic and just explaining why will take 15 minutes! What is the deal, why can't we just get aligned? Product is so stupid. Also engineers: >have fun in your product only meeting, dorks. I'm a programmer, and we HATE meetings cause of programming and stuff.

noir_lord 6y ago

Ah, you mean "Scrum of Scrums" where the people with at best half a clue lose that half. I distinctly dislike my job (and am looking elsewhere, interview monday).

Xylakant 6y ago
Scrum - as pretty much everything - is bad when it’s done bad and can be good when it’s done good. I’ve seen both: 30 minutes of SoS where you’d wish for a pure caffeine infusion just to keep your eyelids up and daily SoS meetings with representatives from about 15 teams which were quickly adjourned most of the days when no cross cutting concerns needed coordination. It all hinges on the person responsible for the meeting.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  Shrugs, I don't have the authority to fix the problems yet I'm responsible for the fallout - hence I'm leaving as soon as possible. If you have a broken process the developers with options will leave, what is left is the developers who are either stuck for family reasons or simply unemployable elsewhere - a few years later you wonder why a simple change takes a week and a half and breaks things that should be totally unrelated and blame the process, so you do workflow re-org number #27 to see if you can fix it. It's hard to explain to a more senior manager that they are in fact the problem.
2sk21 6y ago
I used to dread the weekly scrum-of-scrums when I was a squad lead at IBM. Everyone used to recite their lines and yet none of the presented information ever seemed to register in people's minds. I would often get calls right after the scrum-of-scrums asking about exactly the things I had just presented
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  Scrum really just seems like a massive reporting framework, except that instead of written reports they have oral reports, which is basically just the same as having the server logs print to a speaker. You might get something useful if you’re around to hear it and are interested in that particular thing at that particular time, but otherwise it’s just a lot of background noise.

sharken 6y ago

PMs having meetings amongst themselves doesn’t sound that productive, one of my favorite expressions to that effect is “This problem can’t be fixed by talking”, e.g. a developer is required. Some non-developers are good people though ;)

dev_tty01 6y ago

They just need to "manage harder."