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In my mind, here's a Good Tradition (TM): before crossing a street, look to your left then your right then your left again. The only reason I as a small child

In my mind, here's a Good Tradition (TM): before crossing a street, look to your left then your right then your left again. The only reason I as a small child learned this was because in a world where cars drive on the right side it makes perfect sense. But there are so many traditions that are senseless: shaking hands, wrapping food in plastic, celebrating Christmas, abiding to corporate hierarchies and work for a dictatorship while living in a democracy, documenting code, bullying the weak, as was tradition when I went to school, having stand-ups when you're not doing SCRUM and so on and so forth. Traditions might not necessarily be good things. Trail and error has been my only strategy to find out which are good and which are bad. I wish I could stand on the shoulders of giants because then I would probably be much wiser that I am today, because of the head start it would give me.

baud147258 5y ago
it'd depend on the various team, but even if the team doesn't follow scrum, I feel like having stand-ups is useful, to share information across the team.
- kreeben 5y ago
  I do to and this is partly my point. If I had taken for granted that traditions are good then I wouldn't have questioned waterfall project stand-ups, a concept that is essentially good and I would have been much wiser for it. For me, the non-SCRUM stand-up is still in the "trial" phase. My mind still resists the very thought of it.
  - linker3000 5y ago
    "I wouldn't have questioned waterfall project stand-ups" Back in 1956, Teams, Slack etc. were still pre-alpha and it was possibly difficult or technically impossible to have a group phone call, so a stand-up for larger teams spread round a building might have been the only way to quickly share info + it got the folks out of the noisy computer rooms (plus ça change there!)
- linker3000 5y ago
  A daily stand up is good for some dispersed teams, or close-knit teams that for some reason (forming, norming?) have not developed the ability to communicate effectively, or get a feel in real-time what their colleagues are doing. Any higher-order stuff should be dispersed by a team leader or senior team member - and that can be done 'as, and when, needed'. Does this require a mandatory daily stand-up? On some occasions, I have reduced the daily stand-up from 30 mins (yes, I know) to 20, then 15...etc and it's common for them to reach 0 without any loss of knowledge transfer because the team members have started to communicate effectively by other means. Granted, the pandemic has changed the nature of the communications challenge a bit. I am happy to see teams having a daily stand-up because they need them. I take more notice when teams have a daily stand-up because they have been told they should have one.
Veen 5y ago
> But there are so many traditions that are senseless A tradition is not senseless just because you don't like it or understand the reason for it. Often, there are very good reasons a convention like shaking hands or abiding by hierarchies becomes a tradition. By all means, get rid of worthless traditions, but take care you don't cause unintended consequences when you fiddle with traditions without understanding their motivation. Also, perhaps a little humility is in order. It's just possible the people who instigated a tradition were smarter than you or knew something you don't. https://fs.blog/2020/03/chestertons-fence/ https://fs.blog/2020/03/chestertons-fence/
- ModernMech 5y ago
  > but take care you don't cause unintended consequences when you fiddle with traditions without understanding their motivation. Reminds me of The Office when Mike is in the woods, Jim tries to consolidate all birthday parties into a single day to increase productivity, but then faces a revolt and realizes separate birthday parties are the only thing maintaining office cohesion. When Mike returns to the office he reveals he made the same mistake when he was starting out.
- kreeben 5y ago
  Yes, humility. This. I used to have it. Now I wish I had more of it. How can I get it? I used to read lots of books. Maybe that's what I should start doing again. I say this quite unsarcastically.
  - Clubber 5y ago
    Memento Mori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori
  - teddyh 5y ago
    http://www.machall.com/view.php?date=2003-09-22 http://www.machall.com/view.php?date=2003-09-22
trabant00 5y ago
The trouble is in deciding which traditions are useless and which are not. Let's take some of your examples: - shaking hands - any form of greeting involving physical contact (hugging) is a lot more powerful than just words - celebrating Christmas - you can have a family reunion any time, or rest on any day, not just Sunday. But do you? Or do you need a pretext and a common free day for everybody and a guarantee that at least one day per week you do not work and nobody can tell you to? - corporate hierarchies, dictatorship - any form of flat organization fails to take timely important decision because nobody can enforce them. Dictators started in Rome, where the fiercely republican senate recognized that during crises they could not unite to do anything and appointed limited time dictators and willingly submitted completely to their decisions. Also take a look at the outcomes of the Arab Spring, did the removal of dictators improve the lives of the people?

baud147258 5y ago

it'd depend on the various team, but even if the team doesn't follow scrum, I feel like having stand-ups is useful, to share information across the team.

kreeben 5y ago
I do to and this is partly my point. If I had taken for granted that traditions are good then I wouldn't have questioned waterfall project stand-ups, a concept that is essentially good and I would have been much wiser for it. For me, the non-SCRUM stand-up is still in the "trial" phase. My mind still resists the very thought of it.
- linker3000 5y ago
  "I wouldn't have questioned waterfall project stand-ups" Back in 1956, Teams, Slack etc. were still pre-alpha and it was possibly difficult or technically impossible to have a group phone call, so a stand-up for larger teams spread round a building might have been the only way to quickly share info + it got the folks out of the noisy computer rooms (plus ça change there!)
linker3000 5y ago
A daily stand up is good for some dispersed teams, or close-knit teams that for some reason (forming, norming?) have not developed the ability to communicate effectively, or get a feel in real-time what their colleagues are doing. Any higher-order stuff should be dispersed by a team leader or senior team member - and that can be done 'as, and when, needed'. Does this require a mandatory daily stand-up? On some occasions, I have reduced the daily stand-up from 30 mins (yes, I know) to 20, then 15...etc and it's common for them to reach 0 without any loss of knowledge transfer because the team members have started to communicate effectively by other means. Granted, the pandemic has changed the nature of the communications challenge a bit. I am happy to see teams having a daily stand-up because they need them. I take more notice when teams have a daily stand-up because they have been told they should have one.

Veen 5y ago

> But there are so many traditions that are senseless A tradition is not senseless just because you don't like it or understand the reason for it. Often, there are very good reasons a convention like shaking hands or abiding by hierarchies becomes a tradition. By all means, get rid of worthless traditions, but take care you don't cause unintended consequences when you fiddle with traditions without understanding their motivation. Also, perhaps a little humility is in order. It's just possible the people who instigated a tradition were smarter than you or knew something you don't. https://fs.blog/2020/03/chestertons-fence/ https://fs.blog/2020/03/chestertons-fence/

ModernMech 5y ago
> but take care you don't cause unintended consequences when you fiddle with traditions without understanding their motivation. Reminds me of The Office when Mike is in the woods, Jim tries to consolidate all birthday parties into a single day to increase productivity, but then faces a revolt and realizes separate birthday parties are the only thing maintaining office cohesion. When Mike returns to the office he reveals he made the same mistake when he was starting out.
kreeben 5y ago
Yes, humility. This. I used to have it. Now I wish I had more of it. How can I get it? I used to read lots of books. Maybe that's what I should start doing again. I say this quite unsarcastically.
- Clubber 5y ago
  Memento Mori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori
- teddyh 5y ago
  http://www.machall.com/view.php?date=2003-09-22 http://www.machall.com/view.php?date=2003-09-22

trabant00 5y ago

The trouble is in deciding which traditions are useless and which are not. Let's take some of your examples: - shaking hands - any form of greeting involving physical contact (hugging) is a lot more powerful than just words - celebrating Christmas - you can have a family reunion any time, or rest on any day, not just Sunday. But do you? Or do you need a pretext and a common free day for everybody and a guarantee that at least one day per week you do not work and nobody can tell you to? - corporate hierarchies, dictatorship - any form of flat organization fails to take timely important decision because nobody can enforce them. Dictators started in Rome, where the fiercely republican senate recognized that during crises they could not unite to do anything and appointed limited time dictators and willingly submitted completely to their decisions. Also take a look at the outcomes of the Arab Spring, did the removal of dictators improve the lives of the people?