3 ms·

Having a daily casual meeting where everyone brings up all of their problems and issues, and anyone in the company is welcome to listen, but not talk, is just a

by jseban 5y ago

Having a daily casual meeting where everyone brings up all of their problems and issues, and anyone in the company is welcome to listen, but not talk, is just a dumb idea. And there are never any recurring (easy) obstacles that the scrum master can resolve, and that can always wait until the next daily, the work of developing software simply doesn't work that way. Edit: this is some bullshit inspired by rugby where you have regroup and change strategy as you learn about your opponents, what does that have to do with developing software I don't know.

dagw 5y ago
If they where going to use a rugby term, I've always thought "ruck" would have been better. A ruck is quickly and dynamically formed every time progress is slowed, a scrum is a big formal process that is only necessary to restart the game after someone has screwed up.
splistud 5y ago
Team rituals that trigger a productivity phase have no usefulness. Team communication has no value. Team leader having a chance to quickly gauge progress is not helpful at all.
- malermeister 5y ago
  > trigger a productivity phase [Citation needed]. I find standups and their context switching cost me at least an hour of productivity each day. > Team communication has no value If you want to communicate with your teammates, just use Slack and communicate instantly, why wait for the next morning's standup? If anything, standup slows down communication. > Team leader having a chance to quickly gauge progress You mean like the [insert ticketing system] board? Why do we have to waste time talking about stuff that's already being tracked?
  - handrous 5y ago
    > You mean like the [insert ticketing system] board? Why do we have to waste time talking about stuff that's already being tracked? This doesn't fully excuse it, but the more closely management is watching team-work-coordination tools like ticketing systems, and the higher the level of management that's looking at them, the more prone they are to drift from reflecting reality. That a standup is, by default, not transparent and recorded for anyone else to look at, is, in some organizations, and if they're run properly, most of their value. Granted, yes, that's a work around for a broader cultural problem and shouldn't be necessary, but the real world's a mess.
randomdata 5y ago
Taking time to regroup and change strategy as you learn more about your opponents (competitors in business speak) has a lot to do with developing software. In practice, it turns out that you don't normally learn things about your competitors on a fixed regular schedule. As a result, I have yet to meet a daily (weekly, etc.) standup that hasn't devolved into "I worked on this, I will work on that." to escape the awkward silence.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  Lol...there is no escaping the awkward silence on my team. We just had a meeting where every manager over our team wanted to meet with us and thank us and pat us on the back and look at us etc because we have absolutely kicked ass...not one team member said a single word the entire half hour. No one wanted to tell them that it isn't cool, we are all burned the fuck out, the work load and pace are rediculous and most of us can't wait to fucking leave (I'm on the way out). They worshipped us, kissed our ass, were genuinely sincere, but they just don't get it. Oh well, the managers will get promoted, again.
corey_moncure 5y ago
You may have a leadership team that doesn't understand the problem domain, that is, the "opponents" in the rugby analogy. They fumble around blindly, placing their faith in the Process and the herculean effort of the dev team to eventually attain expertise through trial and error which it is leadership's responsibility to provide in the first place, or to hire appropriate experts to provide. Alternatively, it may be the case that your leadership team is relying on the Process to insulate them from their responsibility to promote the well being of their employees, and from the loss that naturally follows when an important member of a vital team leaves the company. Rather than viewing their team as a resource to be nurtured and developed, they view you as a liability. Such companies instead develop their Process to such an extent that any member's agency and responsibility is effectively zero. Team members act like hamsters in a wheel, spinning endlessly, consuming an infinite treadmill of tickets and producing result units in 3x to 10x the amount of time it would take an empowered, impassioned developer. These inefficiencies are viewed as acceptable, even inevitable-- so deeply do they fear their employees taking meaningful ownership of their work. Many such cases.

by jseban 5y ago

dagw 5y ago

If they where going to use a rugby term, I've always thought "ruck" would have been better. A ruck is quickly and dynamically formed every time progress is slowed, a scrum is a big formal process that is only necessary to restart the game after someone has screwed up.

splistud 5y ago

Team rituals that trigger a productivity phase have no usefulness. Team communication has no value. Team leader having a chance to quickly gauge progress is not helpful at all.

malermeister 5y ago
> trigger a productivity phase [Citation needed]. I find standups and their context switching cost me at least an hour of productivity each day. > Team communication has no value If you want to communicate with your teammates, just use Slack and communicate instantly, why wait for the next morning's standup? If anything, standup slows down communication. > Team leader having a chance to quickly gauge progress You mean like the [insert ticketing system] board? Why do we have to waste time talking about stuff that's already being tracked?
- handrous 5y ago
  > You mean like the [insert ticketing system] board? Why do we have to waste time talking about stuff that's already being tracked? This doesn't fully excuse it, but the more closely management is watching team-work-coordination tools like ticketing systems, and the higher the level of management that's looking at them, the more prone they are to drift from reflecting reality. That a standup is, by default, not transparent and recorded for anyone else to look at, is, in some organizations, and if they're run properly, most of their value. Granted, yes, that's a work around for a broader cultural problem and shouldn't be necessary, but the real world's a mess.

randomdata 5y ago

Taking time to regroup and change strategy as you learn more about your opponents (competitors in business speak) has a lot to do with developing software. In practice, it turns out that you don't normally learn things about your competitors on a fixed regular schedule. As a result, I have yet to meet a daily (weekly, etc.) standup that hasn't devolved into "I worked on this, I will work on that." to escape the awkward silence.

datavirtue 5y ago
Lol...there is no escaping the awkward silence on my team. We just had a meeting where every manager over our team wanted to meet with us and thank us and pat us on the back and look at us etc because we have absolutely kicked ass...not one team member said a single word the entire half hour. No one wanted to tell them that it isn't cool, we are all burned the fuck out, the work load and pace are rediculous and most of us can't wait to fucking leave (I'm on the way out). They worshipped us, kissed our ass, were genuinely sincere, but they just don't get it. Oh well, the managers will get promoted, again.

corey_moncure 5y ago

You may have a leadership team that doesn't understand the problem domain, that is, the "opponents" in the rugby analogy. They fumble around blindly, placing their faith in the Process and the herculean effort of the dev team to eventually attain expertise through trial and error which it is leadership's responsibility to provide in the first place, or to hire appropriate experts to provide. Alternatively, it may be the case that your leadership team is relying on the Process to insulate them from their responsibility to promote the well being of their employees, and from the loss that naturally follows when an important member of a vital team leaves the company. Rather than viewing their team as a resource to be nurtured and developed, they view you as a liability. Such companies instead develop their Process to such an extent that any member's agency and responsibility is effectively zero. Team members act like hamsters in a wheel, spinning endlessly, consuming an infinite treadmill of tickets and producing result units in 3x to 10x the amount of time it would take an empowered, impassioned developer. These inefficiencies are viewed as acceptable, even inevitable-- so deeply do they fear their employees taking meaningful ownership of their work. Many such cases.