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I’ve only worked for two companies in my career as a data scientist. The first one was a large, non-tech company, and we had mountains of “process”—Jira, Agile,

I’ve only worked for two companies in my career as a data scientist. The first one was a large, non-tech company, and we had mountains of “process”—Jira, Agile, stand-ups, training sessions on scrum, etc. I found it difficult to be productive, and I think my teammates did as well. The second company (that I still work for) is a large tech company, and there is almost zero prescribed process (at least for the teams I’ve been on; can’t speak for the entire company). Counterintuitively, everyone seems to be vastly more productive. In terms of process, the most we might do is to put together a loose project roadmap in a Google Doc or something, but that’s about it. There are no stand-ups. Superfluous meetings are discouraged. I have a weekly 1:1 with my manager to ensure my work and goals are aligned with the team priorities. It’s really nice because I feel like I actually have room to breath and get things done rather than attempt to “have something ready” for the standup the next day. At my first company, I arrived there as early as I could in the morning and left after exactly 8 hours. At my current company, I don’t have that desire to finish up the work day as quickly as possible. Although that might also have something to do with the second company rewarding performance and impact much more heavily than the first company—hard to tell how all of these different incentives influences employee psychology and behavior.

oifjsidjf 4y ago
Similar experience. We have 2 meetings per week, all in the same day. The rest is intra-teams communication without management butting in. Everyone is extremely productive. Why people think that daily standups are useful is beyond me. 95% of the things in the 2 weekly team meetings that we have is already useless for most people (but having everyone there is useful since otherwise you're just waiting to ping someone to respond, you zone out anyway if the topic is not to your relevance).
salmonlogs 4y ago
I briefly worked for a large non-tech corporate in between two FAANG jobs. What really surprised me at the corporate was how much they love to TALK about Agile. We had Agile Coaches, an Agile Centre of Excellence, dedicated Scrum Masters (literally their entire job), Agile Squads to try and improve the Agile Process, mandatory Agile Training and we constantly talked about how things were Agile and if we could be more Agile. They even experimented for a quarter by adding a mandatory agenda item to every single meeting to review how Agile we were and what can be done to be more Agile. We got absolutely nothing done. Progress was glacial, decisions took months, it was painful to do anything. In contrast, at both FAANG tech companies I'm not sure I've ever heard someone say the word Agile directly. It just happens by default, no ceremony and rigour required. Shit gets done, at pace, and people are excited and motivated to do it.
- hef19898 4y ago
  For the love of me I fail to find an article again about the different approaches, Scrum, waterfall or whatnot, and hoe they are used at start-ups, FAANG, large non-tech companies. I found it through the HN front page... Gist of it: FAANG is very flexible as long as things get done (hinting at really understanding how things work), large corps somewhat flexible between teams (understanding in principle how it works but still being big corps) while start-ups stick to one methodology (sticking what some founder knows, or thinks to know). Brackets are my interpretation. Based on what I saw in the last year in my current job, that rings true. Agile is the latest shit, so we aoply it to everuthing, from hardware development to ERP roll outs. Not sure if in those two cases it is the right approach.
  - HUSSTECH 4y ago
    Was it this? https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/project-management-at-big-tech/ https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/project-management-at-big...
    - hef19898 4y ago
      Exactly this! Thanks a lot!!!
  - nivertech 4y ago
    It's not my understanding of that article. What I understood is: - most FAANGs are using either informal or formal mini-waterfall SDLCs (i.e. starting with small upfront design/product/marketing document). - most non-tech enterprises and consultancies are using Agile/Scrum - startups are somewhat in the middle There is a google sheet with the detailed list of companies and their SDLCs. Lastly I do agree that SDLC should be adapted to company size/stage and the industry/vertical. I.e. don't use Agile/Scrum/SAFe over waterfall/RUP for mission- or safety-critical software (i.e. missile, aviation or automotive). And don't use waterfall/RUP for in-house enterprise software over Agile/Scrum/SAFe, etc. Use something like Shape Up for a small web SaaS product, use EventStorming for a bank or insurance company, etc.
Lev1a 4y ago
I interned in the IT department (5 people for ~1500-2000 endpoints) of a large regional hospital with additional small local care instutions spread out over the surrounding towns/cities. We had ONE meeting per week, every monday morning, where everyone told what they achieved the past week, what they planned to do that week and the department head handed down news from corporate to us (planned expansions, transitions in corpo IT etc.). That meeting took about 60 minutes and we were then all on the same level for that week with finer coordination done as required by specific incidents/projects. Haven't yet worked in another institution with such a process but from my limited POV it worked really well, whereas daily meetings to reiterate the same things every, single, day sound like such a waste of time.
andrekandre 4y ago
> there is almost zero prescribed process ... Counterintuitively, everyone seems to be vastly more productive. i think this the whole "people over process" part of agile that most "agile" people seem to forget....

oifjsidjf 4y ago

Similar experience. We have 2 meetings per week, all in the same day. The rest is intra-teams communication without management butting in. Everyone is extremely productive. Why people think that daily standups are useful is beyond me. 95% of the things in the 2 weekly team meetings that we have is already useless for most people (but having everyone there is useful since otherwise you're just waiting to ping someone to respond, you zone out anyway if the topic is not to your relevance).

salmonlogs 4y ago

I briefly worked for a large non-tech corporate in between two FAANG jobs. What really surprised me at the corporate was how much they love to TALK about Agile. We had Agile Coaches, an Agile Centre of Excellence, dedicated Scrum Masters (literally their entire job), Agile Squads to try and improve the Agile Process, mandatory Agile Training and we constantly talked about how things were Agile and if we could be more Agile. They even experimented for a quarter by adding a mandatory agenda item to every single meeting to review how Agile we were and what can be done to be more Agile. We got absolutely nothing done. Progress was glacial, decisions took months, it was painful to do anything. In contrast, at both FAANG tech companies I'm not sure I've ever heard someone say the word Agile directly. It just happens by default, no ceremony and rigour required. Shit gets done, at pace, and people are excited and motivated to do it.

hef19898 4y ago
For the love of me I fail to find an article again about the different approaches, Scrum, waterfall or whatnot, and hoe they are used at start-ups, FAANG, large non-tech companies. I found it through the HN front page... Gist of it: FAANG is very flexible as long as things get done (hinting at really understanding how things work), large corps somewhat flexible between teams (understanding in principle how it works but still being big corps) while start-ups stick to one methodology (sticking what some founder knows, or thinks to know). Brackets are my interpretation. Based on what I saw in the last year in my current job, that rings true. Agile is the latest shit, so we aoply it to everuthing, from hardware development to ERP roll outs. Not sure if in those two cases it is the right approach.
- HUSSTECH 4y ago
  Was it this? https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/project-management-at-big-tech/ https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/project-management-at-big...
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Exactly this! Thanks a lot!!!
- nivertech 4y ago
  It's not my understanding of that article. What I understood is: - most FAANGs are using either informal or formal mini-waterfall SDLCs (i.e. starting with small upfront design/product/marketing document). - most non-tech enterprises and consultancies are using Agile/Scrum - startups are somewhat in the middle There is a google sheet with the detailed list of companies and their SDLCs. Lastly I do agree that SDLC should be adapted to company size/stage and the industry/vertical. I.e. don't use Agile/Scrum/SAFe over waterfall/RUP for mission- or safety-critical software (i.e. missile, aviation or automotive). And don't use waterfall/RUP for in-house enterprise software over Agile/Scrum/SAFe, etc. Use something like Shape Up for a small web SaaS product, use EventStorming for a bank or insurance company, etc.

Lev1a 4y ago

I interned in the IT department (5 people for ~1500-2000 endpoints) of a large regional hospital with additional small local care instutions spread out over the surrounding towns/cities. We had ONE meeting per week, every monday morning, where everyone told what they achieved the past week, what they planned to do that week and the department head handed down news from corporate to us (planned expansions, transitions in corpo IT etc.). That meeting took about 60 minutes and we were then all on the same level for that week with finer coordination done as required by specific incidents/projects. Haven't yet worked in another institution with such a process but from my limited POV it worked really well, whereas daily meetings to reiterate the same things every, single, day sound like such a waste of time.

andrekandre 4y ago

> there is almost zero prescribed process ... Counterintuitively, everyone seems to be vastly more productive. i think this the whole "people over process" part of agile that most "agile" people seem to forget....