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I've worked in three fortune 500 companies (banking and finance). Several SV tech companies (in satellite offices - not in SV). Two pure startups. An engineerin

I've worked in three fortune 500 companies (banking and finance). Several SV tech companies (in satellite offices - not in SV). Two pure startups. An engineering firm. I have never seen it be anything but a waste of time. And it always consumes significantly more time than the boosters claim it does. And we can look at each other's anecdotes with suspicion. But there's a paradox that when someone says "Oh it's only 1 minute per person" then my natural response is "why isn't that a status line they set in IM or something?" at whatever asynchronous time it suits them best in their workday. How could it possibly be the best way to communicate 60 seconds of information by making everyone break their flow and gather together. And if it's more than 1 minute, and you're getting into actual meat, well then there are even bigger issues afoot like an inappropriately large and inefficient audience. If you're just stating exactly what everyone can see in JIRA or whatever product you use, then it's a waste of time. Aside: In probably half those teams there were remote developers who'd have to call in. Boy, that added a whole new fun level where everyone does nothing while technical issues are sorted. EDIT: After the flurry of downvotes by these scrum disciples, I can't even reply to the disingenuous reply to this that makes some astonishing projections, and again tries to moral high ground. If you are on a team that derives value from scrums, you are probably on a shitty team. Debating with the zealots of scrum land (who, like the guy below, will repeatedly tell you -- in between their evangelizing -- that they're not really zealots) is a Schrödinger's Cat of productivity, where not only does it take no time and impose no flow penalty, completely and fully detached with every inkling of software development knowledge industrywide, it also conveys everything to everyone and is all powerful.

BeetleB 6y ago
You didn't address the very basic issue: Why can't your team(s) have proper meetings? People coming on time, or at least not waiting for people to come on time? Why can't they maintain the discipline of not ratholing and going off into technical issues? As I'm not necessarily in favor of standups, nor has anyone responding to you claimed to be, you're simply blowing hot air complaining about the purpose behind standups as opposed to addressing the comments they are making. Not respecting people's time (frequently late for a meeting, meeting organizers making the on-time people wait for the off-time ones, etc), not being able to communicate well (cannot summarize, or meanders to off topic stuff) are all qualities of poor workers and poor teams. Such behavior is quite common, in my experience, but these are legitimate reasons not to work with them. Once you hit some minimal level of technical ability, the other skills matter at least as much in a team environment. There are plenty of pointless rituals most people have to do in their life and work. Amongst those things, being able to handle a simple 15 minute meeting a day is one of the easiest. When people have trouble with it, it's a sign of a behavioral problem. Either some team members do not have the minimum bar of discipline/communication, or they are intentionally acting this way as some sort of civil disobedience against scrum. There are usually appropriate ways to make change - in most cases such behavior is just a sign of immaturity. Of course, there is such a thing as poor management, and sometimes such behavior is the only realistic way. But then again - it's still a good turn off for me not to work there. As I said in another comment: Following scrum does a good job of exposing problems. And everything you describe sounds like problems in the team or the management.

BeetleB 6y ago

You didn't address the very basic issue: Why can't your team(s) have proper meetings? People coming on time, or at least not waiting for people to come on time? Why can't they maintain the discipline of not ratholing and going off into technical issues? As I'm not necessarily in favor of standups, nor has anyone responding to you claimed to be, you're simply blowing hot air complaining about the purpose behind standups as opposed to addressing the comments they are making. Not respecting people's time (frequently late for a meeting, meeting organizers making the on-time people wait for the off-time ones, etc), not being able to communicate well (cannot summarize, or meanders to off topic stuff) are all qualities of poor workers and poor teams. Such behavior is quite common, in my experience, but these are legitimate reasons not to work with them. Once you hit some minimal level of technical ability, the other skills matter at least as much in a team environment. There are plenty of pointless rituals most people have to do in their life and work. Amongst those things, being able to handle a simple 15 minute meeting a day is one of the easiest. When people have trouble with it, it's a sign of a behavioral problem. Either some team members do not have the minimum bar of discipline/communication, or they are intentionally acting this way as some sort of civil disobedience against scrum. There are usually appropriate ways to make change - in most cases such behavior is just a sign of immaturity. Of course, there is such a thing as poor management, and sometimes such behavior is the only realistic way. But then again - it's still a good turn off for me not to work there. As I said in another comment: Following scrum does a good job of exposing problems. And everything you describe sounds like problems in the team or the management.