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What am I going to do with the information? The purpose of a functioning standup is contextualization. If you know your teammate is still working on feature X

What am I going to do with the information? The purpose of a functioning standup is contextualization. If you know your teammate is still working on feature X, maybe you notice that your own work is related and you can design some shared data structure that speeds up both of you. If you want to be an IC with no responsibility, that's fine, just make it clear to your team that your assigned work is all you are going to do. If you want to be more productive individually and as a team, though, the interconnectedness of the team is just as important as what any one member is working on.

Salgat 5y ago
Isn't this a very basic function of a kanban board?
randomdata 5y ago
If I know when the teammate starts working on X and stops working on X, why am I not able to infer that he is working on X during the period in between? In reality, I already know that he is working on X and anything that is relevant to that already applies. I'm still not clear on what information ”worked on feature X yesterday. Will continue to work on feature X today” gives me.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  Tone of voice, body language, hesitation, etc. Non-verbal clues that maybe you can help your teammember, or that they can help you. It gets better if there's some detail about the task, like "Still working on X, runtime is too slow but I found a paper linked from Wikipedia with a promising algorithm." Lots of inferred and implied knowledge transfer can happen through intetactions that seem simple on the surface. E.g. in my example here, ideas of how to approach research for a task, what kinds of obstacles are normal, etc. If you're not building camaraderie, then maybe your standup isn't set up right or at the right time, but that doesn't mean the concept or the information is useless. And as a last resort, if you can't change something, then put in your own effort to make the best of it instead of just wasting the time entirely.
  - randomdata 5y ago
    > if you can't change something Oh, but I can change something. If you remember having this discussion last year, it was ”worked on feature X yesterday. Will continue to work on feature X today. No blockers.” To which I pointed out that the "No blockers" part serves no purpose as if anyone had a known blocker, they would have already let the team know when it became a blocker, not wait for a fixed time of day. It is not coincidence that the last part isn't said today. Today, I am here to share that the rest of the canned response is also useless. Build camaraderie. Actually talk about the work you are doing with your teammates. These things can be beneficial and you'll still get the same non-verbal cues if there is something afoot. Don't waste valuable time on nothingness.
    - geodel 5y ago
      Agree with sheer banality and vapidity of typical standups. Sometimes I feel organized religions have got nothing on Agile cult.
    - Buttons840 5y ago
      I consider "no blockers" to simply be a nicer way of saying "I'm done talking now". Developers aren't always the most socially gracefully, but hopefully we can continue to avoid saying "I'm done talking now".
      - randomdata 5y ago
        "No blockers" as a funny sign-off phrase akin to "Bye", sure. But I've seen teams explicitly ask "Do you have any blockers?" 1. If I did, I would have told you a long time ago when it became a blocker. 2. If I somehow forgot to tell you a long time ago, I would have told you when I did my standup comedy^H^H^H^H^H^H routine. 3. If I still somehow forgot after all that, it doesn't matter.

Salgat 5y ago

Isn't this a very basic function of a kanban board?

randomdata 5y ago

If I know when the teammate starts working on X and stops working on X, why am I not able to infer that he is working on X during the period in between? In reality, I already know that he is working on X and anything that is relevant to that already applies. I'm still not clear on what information ”worked on feature X yesterday. Will continue to work on feature X today” gives me.

nitrogen 5y ago
Tone of voice, body language, hesitation, etc. Non-verbal clues that maybe you can help your teammember, or that they can help you. It gets better if there's some detail about the task, like "Still working on X, runtime is too slow but I found a paper linked from Wikipedia with a promising algorithm." Lots of inferred and implied knowledge transfer can happen through intetactions that seem simple on the surface. E.g. in my example here, ideas of how to approach research for a task, what kinds of obstacles are normal, etc. If you're not building camaraderie, then maybe your standup isn't set up right or at the right time, but that doesn't mean the concept or the information is useless. And as a last resort, if you can't change something, then put in your own effort to make the best of it instead of just wasting the time entirely.
- randomdata 5y ago
  > if you can't change something Oh, but I can change something. If you remember having this discussion last year, it was ”worked on feature X yesterday. Will continue to work on feature X today. No blockers.” To which I pointed out that the "No blockers" part serves no purpose as if anyone had a known blocker, they would have already let the team know when it became a blocker, not wait for a fixed time of day. It is not coincidence that the last part isn't said today. Today, I am here to share that the rest of the canned response is also useless. Build camaraderie. Actually talk about the work you are doing with your teammates. These things can be beneficial and you'll still get the same non-verbal cues if there is something afoot. Don't waste valuable time on nothingness.
  - geodel 5y ago
    Agree with sheer banality and vapidity of typical standups. Sometimes I feel organized religions have got nothing on Agile cult.
  - Buttons840 5y ago
    I consider "no blockers" to simply be a nicer way of saying "I'm done talking now". Developers aren't always the most socially gracefully, but hopefully we can continue to avoid saying "I'm done talking now".
    - randomdata 5y ago
      "No blockers" as a funny sign-off phrase akin to "Bye", sure. But I've seen teams explicitly ask "Do you have any blockers?" 1. If I did, I would have told you a long time ago when it became a blocker. 2. If I somehow forgot to tell you a long time ago, I would have told you when I did my standup comedy^H^H^H^H^H^H routine. 3. If I still somehow forgot after all that, it doesn't matter.