4 ms·

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

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.

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.