4 ms·

Unfortunately it’s become a high-confidence signal that shenanigans will be ongoing.

Frost1x 5y ago
I use this as a signal of avoidance: not interested in your varied way to try and manipulate SWE labor and squeeze another once of productivity out or pass off your debt in the form of my time at the cost of my sanity. I know many others that do the very same. Perhaps it's my loss, it's a risk I'm willing to take due to the number of bad apples associated with such practices.
- jameshart 5y ago
  I'm not sure what this kind of cynicism actually gets for you. If you approach any job ad with the assumption that whenever they try to put a positive spin on the working environment they offer, they really mean they'll manipulate your labor to squeeze out productivity at the cost of your sanity... ... why would you work for anyone?
  - junon 5y ago
    You're assuming that agile is a "positive spin on the working environment". In 11 years of professional work, it's only ever been used as a weapon against the development team.
    - ex_amazon_sde 5y ago
      Spot on. Often it feels like a cult, but even more often is used as a micromanagement tool.
      - tharkun__ 5y ago
        This has nothing to do with agile practices. Micromanagement is micromanagement. The people you are apparently working for and with will micro manage regardless of any process. I also suspect that you do not actually work in a team. You probably work with other people that are loosely grouped together. I doubt you are actually working together on a common goal though, if you do not see value in standups for example. If there's no value in knowing what your team members are working on, you are not working closely together,you aren't helping each other etc. I suspect you have a product owner that sees standup as a progress report to them and that tries to exert their micromanaging power through it. I also suspect that you don't have a Scrum master that protects the team from this rogue product owner. I would take such a PO to the side and explain to him that if he doesn't stop this practice they will soon be disallowed from being in standup and that they have one chance to stay in standup and at least listen. Meaning unless asked a question by a team member they better keep their mouth shut. Am I at least somewhat close?
        Davertron 5y ago
        > I doubt you are actually working together on a common goal though, if you do not see value in standups for example. It sounds like you're assuming the only way to sync up with folks is a stand up, which is just ridiculous. I'd even make the argument that if you think you need a stand up so that team members actually communicate with each other then you're not working on an actual team, you're working with other people that are loosely grouped together. Any good team I've ever worked on, people just organically collaborate as needed. You don't have to wait for some arbitrary sync-up time to let each other know what's going on. In general, I'm not necessarily against stand-ups, as long as they're quick and don't turn into status meetings. In my mind, a perfectly reasonable stand up could be "does everyone know what they're doing? Does anyone need help?" and if the answers to those are "yes" and "no" respectively, then we can be on our way. But more often these things turn into minor status report meetings, where everyone starts saying "this is what I did yesterday; this is what I'm doing today..." and often those details are not relevant for everyone on the team and could just as easily be communicated elsewhere in an async fashion. I feel like a lot of things like stand-ups exist for the lowest common denominator teams. Bad teams don't organically communicate, people slack off if you don't micromanage them, etc., and so for those teams you NEED a stand-up. But then it gets forced on everyone and is a drag for high-performing teams, and good people end up leaving because they just don't want to deal with all the BS. So you end up with a self-fulfilling prophecy where what you're mostly left with is bad teams and so it feels like stand-up is necessary or is working. It's kind of maddening.
    - jameshart 5y ago
      They're putting it in their job ad. It's fair to conclude they think it's a perk.
  - jjav 5y ago
    > I'm not sure what this kind of cynicism actually gets for you. Not OP, but cynicism against agile get me (somewhat) avoidance of the most toxic workplaces, which is what agile is.
  - Frost1x 5y ago
    Because you have to? Your other options are to be born wealthy, start an independent business (which also usually requires up front capital), or live out in the wilderness. As the alternative, you try to find positions that don't look like they have a pile of spin buried in them that seem to be hiding something. You look for red flags and then interview the set of employers that is also interested in interviewing you. You can reduce the filter and wait for the interview processes to reduce false positives but from my experience, being cynical is a good filter to save me time from working in toxic positions at toxic companies. After interviewing and working in business environments, you learn more and more of the spin techniques everyone seems to use. It's interesring how being critical of business ads is viewed negatively, yet it's perfectly fine for businesses to have full day interview processes, background checks, resume filters, skill tests, etc. Hiring businesses obviously don't trust you and your advertising, why is it assumed you should trust them? Trust is a two way street and has to be built and business relationships are growing increasing transactional and shorter term which doesn't exactly instill a sense of trust between people.

I use this as a signal of avoidance: not interested in your varied way to try and manipulate SWE labor and squeeze another once of productivity out or pass off your debt in the form of my time at the cost of my sanity. I know many others that do the very same. Perhaps it's my loss, it's a risk I'm willing to take due to the number of bad apples associated with such practices.

jameshart 5y ago
I'm not sure what this kind of cynicism actually gets for you. If you approach any job ad with the assumption that whenever they try to put a positive spin on the working environment they offer, they really mean they'll manipulate your labor to squeeze out productivity at the cost of your sanity... ... why would you work for anyone?
- junon 5y ago
  You're assuming that agile is a "positive spin on the working environment". In 11 years of professional work, it's only ever been used as a weapon against the development team.
  - ex_amazon_sde 5y ago
    Spot on. Often it feels like a cult, but even more often is used as a micromanagement tool.
    - tharkun__ 5y ago
      This has nothing to do with agile practices. Micromanagement is micromanagement. The people you are apparently working for and with will micro manage regardless of any process. I also suspect that you do not actually work in a team. You probably work with other people that are loosely grouped together. I doubt you are actually working together on a common goal though, if you do not see value in standups for example. If there's no value in knowing what your team members are working on, you are not working closely together,you aren't helping each other etc. I suspect you have a product owner that sees standup as a progress report to them and that tries to exert their micromanaging power through it. I also suspect that you don't have a Scrum master that protects the team from this rogue product owner. I would take such a PO to the side and explain to him that if he doesn't stop this practice they will soon be disallowed from being in standup and that they have one chance to stay in standup and at least listen. Meaning unless asked a question by a team member they better keep their mouth shut. Am I at least somewhat close?
      - Davertron 5y ago
        > I doubt you are actually working together on a common goal though, if you do not see value in standups for example. It sounds like you're assuming the only way to sync up with folks is a stand up, which is just ridiculous. I'd even make the argument that if you think you need a stand up so that team members actually communicate with each other then you're not working on an actual team, you're working with other people that are loosely grouped together. Any good team I've ever worked on, people just organically collaborate as needed. You don't have to wait for some arbitrary sync-up time to let each other know what's going on. In general, I'm not necessarily against stand-ups, as long as they're quick and don't turn into status meetings. In my mind, a perfectly reasonable stand up could be "does everyone know what they're doing? Does anyone need help?" and if the answers to those are "yes" and "no" respectively, then we can be on our way. But more often these things turn into minor status report meetings, where everyone starts saying "this is what I did yesterday; this is what I'm doing today..." and often those details are not relevant for everyone on the team and could just as easily be communicated elsewhere in an async fashion. I feel like a lot of things like stand-ups exist for the lowest common denominator teams. Bad teams don't organically communicate, people slack off if you don't micromanage them, etc., and so for those teams you NEED a stand-up. But then it gets forced on everyone and is a drag for high-performing teams, and good people end up leaving because they just don't want to deal with all the BS. So you end up with a self-fulfilling prophecy where what you're mostly left with is bad teams and so it feels like stand-up is necessary or is working. It's kind of maddening.
  - jameshart 5y ago
    They're putting it in their job ad. It's fair to conclude they think it's a perk.
- jjav 5y ago
  > I'm not sure what this kind of cynicism actually gets for you. Not OP, but cynicism against agile get me (somewhat) avoidance of the most toxic workplaces, which is what agile is.
- Frost1x 5y ago
  Because you have to? Your other options are to be born wealthy, start an independent business (which also usually requires up front capital), or live out in the wilderness. As the alternative, you try to find positions that don't look like they have a pile of spin buried in them that seem to be hiding something. You look for red flags and then interview the set of employers that is also interested in interviewing you. You can reduce the filter and wait for the interview processes to reduce false positives but from my experience, being cynical is a good filter to save me time from working in toxic positions at toxic companies. After interviewing and working in business environments, you learn more and more of the spin techniques everyone seems to use. It's interesring how being critical of business ads is viewed negatively, yet it's perfectly fine for businesses to have full day interview processes, background checks, resume filters, skill tests, etc. Hiring businesses obviously don't trust you and your advertising, why is it assumed you should trust them? Trust is a two way street and has to be built and business relationships are growing increasing transactional and shorter term which doesn't exactly instill a sense of trust between people.