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Yes! The proliferation and role of "business people" in traditional companies is IMO their defining characteristic. It shows how much or how little a business t
by opportune 6y ago
Yes! The proliferation and role of "business people" in traditional companies is IMO their defining characteristic. It shows how much or how little a business trusts engineers (and also engineer's "status" within the company, e.g. are they respected and valued or treated as a disposable resource) to run the business as general problem solvers.
The ironic thing about Agile is that it has a cottage industry of "scrum consultants", "scrum masters", project owners, etc. which advocate ostensibly for letting developers self-organize but which also has a vested interest for career and self-preservation reasons in inserting itself above software engineers in the decision making process.
- courtf 6y agoI've long imagined a position just above the scrum masters: the scrum lord. I see this position as a critical component of any agile strategy that seeks to maximize scrum master productivity, while still allowing scrum masters all the autonomy they need for their day-to-day duties.
- loosetypes 6y agoI appreciate your sense of humor
- klipt 6y agoWhy settle for scrum lord when you could be scrum king? Scrum emperor? One day even scrum Pope?
- courtf 6y ago> scrum Pope his holiness will make his presence known in due time
- tehjoker 6y agoSomehow I suspect that something like this is at work inside the Vatican.
- gnusty_gnurc 6y agoLet's just call them all scrumbags
- optimiz3 6y agoPope Scrootus the 1st
- Roboprog 6y agoGod-Emperor of Scrum. The code must flow.
- courtf 6y agoNow fly my scrumlings! Bring me their estimates! Eeehehehe
- DoofusOfDeath 6y agoMeh. A real Evil Scrum Lord makes his victims enter the data by themselves into Jira.
- bitwize 6y agoTwice. Once in points after Planning Poker has sized the story -- the second time in hours.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoOMG planning poker. Never again.
- Aeolun 6y agoHell no. At least then I know it’s entered in a sensible way. If I let the scrum lord do it it’ll be a mess.
- lordnacho 6y agoIn the grim darkness of the future, there is only Scrum!
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoValue based scrum black belt.
- taneq 6y agoScrumplestiltskin. He promises to teach you to spin stories into code but then takes credit for your prototype.
- jrott 6y agonot sure you're going far enough there. Obviously we need a scrum king to guide our scrum lords as they help our scrum masters transform our organization.
- chris11 6y agoI definitely agree with you, but I don't think that's sufficient. I think at larger companies it would be helpful to spend a day or two every quarter having a scrum increment meeting. The SI would let scrum lords and scrum masters plan what experiments would occur during the next quarter.
- lakala6790 6y agoWhat you are looking for is RTE; Release Train Engineer
- bigiain 6y agoClick [here] to sign up for my Free Introductory Scrum Lord certification course! Join our hundreds of Certified Scam Lords earning well above industry standard after just 12 months of online training! (Credit card required. Rebilled at $29.95 per month until cancellation. Minimum period of 12 months. T&Cs apple.)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- peteradio 6y agoThe scrum lord spends most his day in his office making spunk charts. The making of spunk charts is an intensely personal task that uniquely suits them for office ownership. There have been cases where two or more scrum lords create spunk charts together but it is more rare.
- cjfd 6y agoStill, at my company I have an even more lofty title. I am the Kanban King...
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoThese are people whose entire job consists of sitting in meetings and firing off emails. They can't conceive that other people do work collaborating outside of a meeting room.
- Aeolun 6y agoNot just collaborating. Any kind of work. We plan 8 hours a day of work for developers, but they spend 4 hours in meetings, 2 hours fielding questions and just 2 actually working.
- coldcode 6y agoAt my job its more like 10-12 hours a day, since you are counted on to do 6-8 hrs of programming despite all the other stuff.
- dgellow 6y agoTo be fair, I've seen engineers with a similar role.
- anthonypasq 6y agoyep, and thank god. Because I sure as hell dont want to do that as a developer
- pm90 6y agoKeep in mind that Agile (using the term loosely) was invented by software consultants who wanted to maximize the value they provided to the business they worked with. It’s a formalization of the ideas to make them more “acceptable” to execs and the decision makers (who care about such things). When applied to in house engineering teams, it is largely ineffective if it doesn’t come with the same kind of freedom that highly paid software consultants get. This is manifested concretely in how many companies have corrupted agile methodologies by focusing too much on the perfecting practices (or “ceremonies”) rather than focusing on the foundational principles.
- mdtusz 6y agoI'm convinced that the vast majority of business-y manager types that always trumpet "we have to be more agile" have never read the agile manifesto - specifically the "individuals and interactions over process and tools". It's regretful that it caught on so well and has (incorrectly) evolved into a concrete process in most places rather than an ideology.
- drspacemonkey 6y agoI'm convinced of the same thing. I once had a rather enlightening conversation with an Agile consultant who had never read the manifesto. When I showed him, he said "I'm not sure I agree with this".