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Is this what agile/scrum is now? I feel burned out just reading it. IMHO the 'standup' (keep them on their toes!) was always suspect if it was just a PM 'what

Is this what agile/scrum is now? I feel burned out just reading it. IMHO the 'standup' (keep them on their toes!) was always suspect if it was just a PM 'what have you done lately' meeting. Progress can be reported asynchronously. IMHO the point of having the team together daily is to raise exceptions/problems/blockers/whatever to the rest of the team, and perhaps co-ordinate the rest of the day.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
> Progress can be reported asynchronously. Progress shouldn't even need to be reported; it should be obvious from the board, when it comes to communicating upwards. And IMO that's only relevant to the scrum master (who needs to ensure everything is going smoothly) and maybe the product owner; above the PO level, if they care about progress during a sprint they're paid too much. The level above PO should only care about sprint results, maybe.
- joegahona 4y ago
  I've had better success with face-to-face standups. In my experience, "progress should be obvious from the board" and async "standups" have been far less effective than actual standups. Lots of engineers are introverted and hate writing; a good product manager can extract context and blockers via voice (without making it feel like a pop quiz or a blame game) that a shy engineer might be hesitant to broadcast in writing in Slack, and other engineers/designers are _far_ more likely to hear the person when they're speaking than they are to read their boring Slack update (or, even more unlikely, read through that other person's tickets). My rule of thumb has been to keep standups to 7 minutes max, have the other 7 minutes after for any breakout that's needed, and schedule something else if there are still thorny issues to go through. If there are issues with standups bloating to 30 minutes (???), that feels like a process/weak-PM problem, not a tooling problem.
  - jacknews 4y ago
    "manager can extract context and blockers via voice" lol. Which agile principle is this?
    - joegahona 4y ago
      > The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
      - jacknews 4y ago
        'convey', not 'extract'. It's a quite different stance. The PM does not 'run' this meeting. That's just a traditional project manager daily status meeting, the inverse of a 'scrum' where the team themselves huddle together and discuss their problems, and what they're going to do next, etc.
        joegahona 4y ago
        If "extract" is too triggering, you can replace it with "glean." Probably a bad word choice on my part.
        jacknews 4y ago
        maybe, but your original description does not seem to be in the spirit of agile, but more like a manager controlling a team.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - zacharycohn 4y ago
      Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
  - lnxg33k1 4y ago
    >> Lots of engineers are introverted and hate writing I think it’s the time that introverts start going to a therapist to get it fixed, because they’re slowly getting to the top of my most hated bunch of people with this expectation that the whole world need to be put in a passive and painful misery to accommodate them
- ryanSrich 4y ago
  Yeah progress is an output from your tools imo. We have a single channel in our Slack that has GitHub, Linear, and Notion events piped into it. You’d think it’d become a mess, but we encourage people to add keywords to Slack so they get notified when things they want/need to read pop up. So far it’s worked great for a small team (5 people). We still do checkins, but that hooks into Linear as well, so creating a checkin is as easy as clicking a button.
talmi 4y ago
Totally agree on the point of having dailies. For days where there's no blockers or other items to discuss we support async as well. The idea is to allow a more dynamic meeting series which is live when needed and async on days when the team only needs to share status.
leetrout 4y ago
100% this. I don't mind status meetings but call them what they are: a status meeting. It is not a standup. Standups were about alignment and movement so you didn't get blocked trying to communicate through a broker like your manager. They are completely abused and probably always will be.
eek2121 4y ago
Yes, standups are for identifying blockers, issues, etc. or to request help. Reporting on progress is minor and takes very little time and could be done via slack.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

> Progress can be reported asynchronously. Progress shouldn't even need to be reported; it should be obvious from the board, when it comes to communicating upwards. And IMO that's only relevant to the scrum master (who needs to ensure everything is going smoothly) and maybe the product owner; above the PO level, if they care about progress during a sprint they're paid too much. The level above PO should only care about sprint results, maybe.

joegahona 4y ago
I've had better success with face-to-face standups. In my experience, "progress should be obvious from the board" and async "standups" have been far less effective than actual standups. Lots of engineers are introverted and hate writing; a good product manager can extract context and blockers via voice (without making it feel like a pop quiz or a blame game) that a shy engineer might be hesitant to broadcast in writing in Slack, and other engineers/designers are _far_ more likely to hear the person when they're speaking than they are to read their boring Slack update (or, even more unlikely, read through that other person's tickets). My rule of thumb has been to keep standups to 7 minutes max, have the other 7 minutes after for any breakout that's needed, and schedule something else if there are still thorny issues to go through. If there are issues with standups bloating to 30 minutes (???), that feels like a process/weak-PM problem, not a tooling problem.
- jacknews 4y ago
  "manager can extract context and blockers via voice" lol. Which agile principle is this?
  - joegahona 4y ago
    > The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
    - jacknews 4y ago
      'convey', not 'extract'. It's a quite different stance. The PM does not 'run' this meeting. That's just a traditional project manager daily status meeting, the inverse of a 'scrum' where the team themselves huddle together and discuss their problems, and what they're going to do next, etc.
      - joegahona 4y ago
        If "extract" is too triggering, you can replace it with "glean." Probably a bad word choice on my part.
        jacknews 4y ago
        maybe, but your original description does not seem to be in the spirit of agile, but more like a manager controlling a team.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - zacharycohn 4y ago
    Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
- lnxg33k1 4y ago
  >> Lots of engineers are introverted and hate writing I think it’s the time that introverts start going to a therapist to get it fixed, because they’re slowly getting to the top of my most hated bunch of people with this expectation that the whole world need to be put in a passive and painful misery to accommodate them
ryanSrich 4y ago
Yeah progress is an output from your tools imo. We have a single channel in our Slack that has GitHub, Linear, and Notion events piped into it. You’d think it’d become a mess, but we encourage people to add keywords to Slack so they get notified when things they want/need to read pop up. So far it’s worked great for a small team (5 people). We still do checkins, but that hooks into Linear as well, so creating a checkin is as easy as clicking a button.

talmi 4y ago

Totally agree on the point of having dailies. For days where there's no blockers or other items to discuss we support async as well. The idea is to allow a more dynamic meeting series which is live when needed and async on days when the team only needs to share status.

leetrout 4y ago

100% this. I don't mind status meetings but call them what they are: a status meeting. It is not a standup. Standups were about alignment and movement so you didn't get blocked trying to communicate through a broker like your manager. They are completely abused and probably always will be.

eek2121 4y ago

Yes, standups are for identifying blockers, issues, etc. or to request help. Reporting on progress is minor and takes very little time and could be done via slack.