3 ms·

I'm sorry, a process that happens in front of your team so that they can judge whether you're "living up to expectations" is literally a public accountability r

I'm sorry, a process that happens in front of your team so that they can judge whether you're "living up to expectations" is literally a public accountability ritual. You can't fix culture with (just) process, but process certainly affects culture. And this kind of process directly contributes to a culture where people are pressured based on how they work at an extremely finely grained level. Even if somebody is doing top-notch work and having real impact long-term, if they're not making legible progress day-to-day, Agile is going to make them look bad and feel bad. The process itself emphasizes consistency and incremental work while deemphasizing individual flexibility and agency. Now, perhaps some teams have a culture that's strong and accepting enough to compensate for this and provide a great environment for people who work in different ways, but if that's the case it's despite the process, not because of it. I've never seen that myself though.

jimmySixDOF 6y ago
I understand the argument that most people don't implement Agile as it was intended, but I don't think it is an enabler of bad management practices any more than what would be implemented in it's place if you remove the Stand-ups and Backlogs. It's like what they say about Democracy being the worst system of government except for all the rest. Brittle teams who are not in it together with each other are going to be hard work whatever the organizational structure. The fact that situation is so normal is not the fault of Agile.
msingle 6y ago
I'm unsure if this is more your perceptions, the places that you've worked or a combination. Why do you phrase it as "public accountability ritual"? I'm sensing my definition for accountability is different than yours. I typically think of my comment at a standup as (small) opportunity to answer "what have you been working on?" once instead of if every member came by and asked in a friendly manner. I wouldn't be bothered by them asking individually, and it saves me repeating the answer. I've never heard the phrase "isn't living up to expectations" related to stand ups. Do you (or places you've worked) normally have those related? I'm not sure I understand. Why do you think it's "in front of your team" as opposed to "with your team"? I, and other people I've worked with, have never been bothered by saying "still working on the same hard task" for _weeks_. If anything, I usually hear encouraging comments; "it sucks that the task is so difficult", "anything I can do to help you out?", "I'm surprised you haven't gone crazy from that", etc. The places I've worked at aren't even great at agile, but I've never seen the process directed towards some of the things you're saying.
- beckingz 6y ago
  I had a manager who would ask "is that all you're working on?" if you mentioned working on less than 3-4 unique tasks. This incentivized breaking everything up into tiny tasks and getting things out the door instead of getting the right things done. It was not a good workplace.
  - lostcolony 6y ago
    So, first, let me say that, yes, that sounds like a bad workplace. Second, just to point out (I'm sure you realize, but just in the spirit of the parent comment), no agile workplace cares about the load of tasks dev has. Are they busy doing valuable work? If not, is there valuable work they could be doing? That's it. If yes to the first, no problem. If no to the first, and yes to the second, no problem, "hey, I've got something you can have a look at". If no to both, no problem, it's on product and management to work on getting some new work items.
    - beckingz 6y ago
      I agree that a True Agile workplace would not care about making sure that everyone looks busy. So far 2 for 3 of the scrums I've been involved with have degenerated into micromanagement and pointed questions if there wasn't constant process, even if that came at the cost of overall velocity. Maybe just bad luck and bad workplaces, but I am increasing skeptical that there are any true 'Agile' workplaces.
      - lostcolony 6y ago
        I don't think there's a clear definition of what a 'true agile workplace' is. That said, agile is, if anything, a culture. It's why it started with a manifesto, and it's why retrospectives are the only meeting that is spelled out in it; the retros aren't to try and determine what parts of a particular process you're not adhering to, but what isn't working (process or otherwise), so that you can change it (i.e., "At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly"). There are plenty of workplaces that have that culture, even if the processes are all over the place. Of the last four workplaces that called themselves agile that I've worked in, three of them had that culture, and I and my teams got amazing work done in them (in fact, my reason for leaving at least one of them was -directly- due to the hiring of a micromanager and the ousting of someone who protected the teams from upper management). The fourth was an old school enterprise company you've almost assuredly heard of, with high employee retention, a culture of top down management and decision by committee, and, surprise surprise, their injection of agile processes did nothing to make them actually deliver software any faster, nor did it lead to any better results.
lostcolony 6y ago
It's in front of the team so that obstacles can be solved by the team. It's why it's not in front of people outside of the team. The number of times where someone says "I'm struggling with X" and someone else says "Oh! I know about X! I can help!" has been innumerable. And, it really doesn't contribute to a etc. I've had devs spend days with basically the same status, but it also was a large task. I've had devs make incremental progress, and everyone understood. I've had devs (and been a dev!) who said "I got nothing done; I was in meetings and they drained me", and it's fine (though it helps highlight that the meetings are too much very early). The process presumes culture. It assumes the team functions together and is aligned in delivering, and isn't looking to blame one another. If the culture is bad, then, as with any bad culture, it's easy to blame the process.

jimmySixDOF 6y ago

I understand the argument that most people don't implement Agile as it was intended, but I don't think it is an enabler of bad management practices any more than what would be implemented in it's place if you remove the Stand-ups and Backlogs. It's like what they say about Democracy being the worst system of government except for all the rest. Brittle teams who are not in it together with each other are going to be hard work whatever the organizational structure. The fact that situation is so normal is not the fault of Agile.

msingle 6y ago

I'm unsure if this is more your perceptions, the places that you've worked or a combination. Why do you phrase it as "public accountability ritual"? I'm sensing my definition for accountability is different than yours. I typically think of my comment at a standup as (small) opportunity to answer "what have you been working on?" once instead of if every member came by and asked in a friendly manner. I wouldn't be bothered by them asking individually, and it saves me repeating the answer. I've never heard the phrase "isn't living up to expectations" related to stand ups. Do you (or places you've worked) normally have those related? I'm not sure I understand. Why do you think it's "in front of your team" as opposed to "with your team"? I, and other people I've worked with, have never been bothered by saying "still working on the same hard task" for _weeks_. If anything, I usually hear encouraging comments; "it sucks that the task is so difficult", "anything I can do to help you out?", "I'm surprised you haven't gone crazy from that", etc. The places I've worked at aren't even great at agile, but I've never seen the process directed towards some of the things you're saying.

beckingz 6y ago
I had a manager who would ask "is that all you're working on?" if you mentioned working on less than 3-4 unique tasks. This incentivized breaking everything up into tiny tasks and getting things out the door instead of getting the right things done. It was not a good workplace.
- lostcolony 6y ago
  So, first, let me say that, yes, that sounds like a bad workplace. Second, just to point out (I'm sure you realize, but just in the spirit of the parent comment), no agile workplace cares about the load of tasks dev has. Are they busy doing valuable work? If not, is there valuable work they could be doing? That's it. If yes to the first, no problem. If no to the first, and yes to the second, no problem, "hey, I've got something you can have a look at". If no to both, no problem, it's on product and management to work on getting some new work items.
  - beckingz 6y ago
    I agree that a True Agile workplace would not care about making sure that everyone looks busy. So far 2 for 3 of the scrums I've been involved with have degenerated into micromanagement and pointed questions if there wasn't constant process, even if that came at the cost of overall velocity. Maybe just bad luck and bad workplaces, but I am increasing skeptical that there are any true 'Agile' workplaces.
    - lostcolony 6y ago
      I don't think there's a clear definition of what a 'true agile workplace' is. That said, agile is, if anything, a culture. It's why it started with a manifesto, and it's why retrospectives are the only meeting that is spelled out in it; the retros aren't to try and determine what parts of a particular process you're not adhering to, but what isn't working (process or otherwise), so that you can change it (i.e., "At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly"). There are plenty of workplaces that have that culture, even if the processes are all over the place. Of the last four workplaces that called themselves agile that I've worked in, three of them had that culture, and I and my teams got amazing work done in them (in fact, my reason for leaving at least one of them was -directly- due to the hiring of a micromanager and the ousting of someone who protected the teams from upper management). The fourth was an old school enterprise company you've almost assuredly heard of, with high employee retention, a culture of top down management and decision by committee, and, surprise surprise, their injection of agile processes did nothing to make them actually deliver software any faster, nor did it lead to any better results.

lostcolony 6y ago

It's in front of the team so that obstacles can be solved by the team. It's why it's not in front of people outside of the team. The number of times where someone says "I'm struggling with X" and someone else says "Oh! I know about X! I can help!" has been innumerable. And, it really doesn't contribute to a etc. I've had devs spend days with basically the same status, but it also was a large task. I've had devs make incremental progress, and everyone understood. I've had devs (and been a dev!) who said "I got nothing done; I was in meetings and they drained me", and it's fine (though it helps highlight that the meetings are too much very early). The process presumes culture. It assumes the team functions together and is aligned in delivering, and isn't looking to blame one another. If the culture is bad, then, as with any bad culture, it's easy to blame the process.