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I tend to think of yak shaving as the annoying but _necessary_ activity of fixing things you need to fix to close your bug. Not frivolous refactors. More like a

I tend to think of yak shaving as the annoying but _necessary_ activity of fixing things you need to fix to close your bug. Not frivolous refactors. More like adding decent logging to a complex system, cause otherwise, how will you know why your feature doesn’t work?

babyshake 4y ago
Take shaving makes me think of a call stack. The larger the stack, the more you are shaving the yak.
- rzzzt 4y ago
  You also get further and further from the original task as you add items: http://wiki.c2.com/?PushDownGoalStack http://wiki.c2.com/?PushDownGoalStack
denimnerd42 4y ago
Me too. Where I work it's slogging through the process of doing just about anything. A simple task ends up being a to do list that's 10 items long. There's a 60 day use it or lose it policy on just about everything so you may find you need to completely rebuild the dev and testing environments which include automated as well as complicated manual processes before you can even begin to fix the bug.
stingraycharles 4y ago
Yes the example is wrong. It’s about making an apple pie, but figuring out you have no apples, so then you’re going to the supermarket etc etc. It’s about “necessary” things to achieve a goal, without appropriately weighing costs vs benefits nor considering alternative solutions (perhaps making a chocolate pie instead).
Theodores 4y ago
Exactly, what is mocked as Yak Shaving is the important stuff. But try telling your non technical manager why you need to add that logging system, which requires its own testing and deployment. In this scenario you are the one focused, the non-technical people that shuffle tasks around playing 'agile' are the handicap. It could take a couple of hours or a couple of days to get that logging done but explaining to the non technical manager (who refuses to learn) why this needs to be done is a task in itself that cannot be underestimated.

babyshake 4y ago

Take shaving makes me think of a call stack. The larger the stack, the more you are shaving the yak.

rzzzt 4y ago
You also get further and further from the original task as you add items: http://wiki.c2.com/?PushDownGoalStack http://wiki.c2.com/?PushDownGoalStack

denimnerd42 4y ago

Me too. Where I work it's slogging through the process of doing just about anything. A simple task ends up being a to do list that's 10 items long. There's a 60 day use it or lose it policy on just about everything so you may find you need to completely rebuild the dev and testing environments which include automated as well as complicated manual processes before you can even begin to fix the bug.

stingraycharles 4y ago

Yes the example is wrong. It’s about making an apple pie, but figuring out you have no apples, so then you’re going to the supermarket etc etc. It’s about “necessary” things to achieve a goal, without appropriately weighing costs vs benefits nor considering alternative solutions (perhaps making a chocolate pie instead).

Theodores 4y ago

Exactly, what is mocked as Yak Shaving is the important stuff. But try telling your non technical manager why you need to add that logging system, which requires its own testing and deployment. In this scenario you are the one focused, the non-technical people that shuffle tasks around playing 'agile' are the handicap. It could take a couple of hours or a couple of days to get that logging done but explaining to the non technical manager (who refuses to learn) why this needs to be done is a task in itself that cannot be underestimated.