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Rich Hickey has a great joke about sprints, paraphrasing: So how do we run a marathon? That's right, we run a 200m wind sprint! Then another sprint, and anothe

Rich Hickey has a great joke about sprints, paraphrasing: So how do we run a marathon? That's right, we run a 200m wind sprint! Then another sprint, and another, and pretty soon... Of course no one does this, you'd die! We don't do this in software either, for the same reason. But when we talk about 'sprints' this is what we tell ourselves we're doing.

Kinrany 4y ago
I liked the joke when I heard it. Reading it now, I'm realizing that "marathon" doesn't fit as a metaphor because we don't know the destination. Orienteering, perhaps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienteering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienteering
- petrocrat 4y ago
  Orienteering implies there's already a cartographer who made a map for you.
- samatman 4y ago
  Marathon works perfectly to show how bonkers the idea of sprinting is. I like the idea of thinking of software development more as orienteering, if anything, it doesn't go far enough. To deliver full-featured software in time (note I didn't say on time, but there is certainly such a thing as delivering too late) is 10% velocity and 90% dependency resolution. I'm still looking for a tool which thinks primarily in terms of dependencies, and treats time as it is: fixed in the past and speculative in the future. I don't care if the person who put the information into the computer thinks something will take three weeks, I care very much if there are three projects which need completing before the main track can get past the third step.
  - klysm 4y ago
    I’ve always been confused about deps being an after thought in project management.
- cool-RR 4y ago
  Better idea, just call it "software engineering". You don't see runners trying to find metaphors in order to organize how they work. (Sorry, I'm a bit grumpy.)
- hirvi74 4y ago
  > doesn't fit as a metaphor because we don't know the destination From what I have experienced, I think that is perfectly reflected in a lot of software too.
chrisseaton 4y ago
Right - I can't believe how so much of the programming community got suckered into spending their entire career sprinting like mad people from one deadline to another, as if it was a good thing!
kortex 4y ago
I thought "sprint" was dumb at first, for exactly this reason, it's not a sprint if it's week after week. But over time it's just become jargonized, a term of art for me. It's just a unit of organization.
- samatman 4y ago
  My high school mentor loved to say "beware of inconvenient fictions!". The most boring choice would be "section", and boring might be good here. We could borrow from military strategy, not for the first time, and call it a "maneuver". More sporty, and pointing to the repeating nature, would be "round". I wish the word "sprint" could be used for "this will call for an unsustainable amount of effort. we will be calling in dinner a few times. this isn't normal, and can't be normal, and everyone gets to rest after, but it's something we have to do". Instead it's just a way of saying two weeks.
  - kortex 4y ago
    Absolutely, I completely agree with every point in this comment. Round would have been a much better and more neutral term for "one unit of agile work". "Sprint" is tantamount to "bursty and not sustainable". Same with "ceremonies", that one bugs me too, though not as much. I still don't know WTF a scrum is however (not even sure that's an agile-specific term). > The fundamental unit of scrum is a small team of people, consisting of a product owner, a scrum master, and developers. The team is self-managing, cross-functional and focuses on one objective at a time: the product goal. [1] Like, what? I feel like I know less after reading that. That just sounds like...a development team with a team lead and a manager. 1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development)
    - samatman 4y ago
      Scrums are a bunch of lads violently fighting over a rugby football. Baffling.
JackMorgan 4y ago
Right but really, no one actually is sprinting. Devs aren't leaving standup to type as fast as humanly possible for seven hours straight. It's jargon that just means "week".
GoToRO 4y ago
People do die. It's called burnout.
nedt 4y ago
Actually marathon runners are used to regular running. You might even skip the marathon and just run regularly. No need to be a superstar, just stay fit, with a steady progress. Same for software projects. Maybe the analogy isn't that bad.

Kinrany 4y ago

I liked the joke when I heard it. Reading it now, I'm realizing that "marathon" doesn't fit as a metaphor because we don't know the destination. Orienteering, perhaps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienteering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienteering

petrocrat 4y ago
Orienteering implies there's already a cartographer who made a map for you.
samatman 4y ago
Marathon works perfectly to show how bonkers the idea of sprinting is. I like the idea of thinking of software development more as orienteering, if anything, it doesn't go far enough. To deliver full-featured software in time (note I didn't say on time, but there is certainly such a thing as delivering too late) is 10% velocity and 90% dependency resolution. I'm still looking for a tool which thinks primarily in terms of dependencies, and treats time as it is: fixed in the past and speculative in the future. I don't care if the person who put the information into the computer thinks something will take three weeks, I care very much if there are three projects which need completing before the main track can get past the third step.
- klysm 4y ago
  I’ve always been confused about deps being an after thought in project management.
cool-RR 4y ago
Better idea, just call it "software engineering". You don't see runners trying to find metaphors in order to organize how they work. (Sorry, I'm a bit grumpy.)
hirvi74 4y ago
> doesn't fit as a metaphor because we don't know the destination From what I have experienced, I think that is perfectly reflected in a lot of software too.

chrisseaton 4y ago

Right - I can't believe how so much of the programming community got suckered into spending their entire career sprinting like mad people from one deadline to another, as if it was a good thing!

kortex 4y ago

I thought "sprint" was dumb at first, for exactly this reason, it's not a sprint if it's week after week. But over time it's just become jargonized, a term of art for me. It's just a unit of organization.

samatman 4y ago
My high school mentor loved to say "beware of inconvenient fictions!". The most boring choice would be "section", and boring might be good here. We could borrow from military strategy, not for the first time, and call it a "maneuver". More sporty, and pointing to the repeating nature, would be "round". I wish the word "sprint" could be used for "this will call for an unsustainable amount of effort. we will be calling in dinner a few times. this isn't normal, and can't be normal, and everyone gets to rest after, but it's something we have to do". Instead it's just a way of saying two weeks.
- kortex 4y ago
  Absolutely, I completely agree with every point in this comment. Round would have been a much better and more neutral term for "one unit of agile work". "Sprint" is tantamount to "bursty and not sustainable". Same with "ceremonies", that one bugs me too, though not as much. I still don't know WTF a scrum is however (not even sure that's an agile-specific term). > The fundamental unit of scrum is a small team of people, consisting of a product owner, a scrum master, and developers. The team is self-managing, cross-functional and focuses on one objective at a time: the product goal. [1] Like, what? I feel like I know less after reading that. That just sounds like...a development team with a team lead and a manager. 1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development)
  - samatman 4y ago
    Scrums are a bunch of lads violently fighting over a rugby football. Baffling.

JackMorgan 4y ago

Right but really, no one actually is sprinting. Devs aren't leaving standup to type as fast as humanly possible for seven hours straight. It's jargon that just means "week".

GoToRO 4y ago

People do die. It's called burnout.

nedt 4y ago

Actually marathon runners are used to regular running. You might even skip the marathon and just run regularly. No need to be a superstar, just stay fit, with a steady progress. Same for software projects. Maybe the analogy isn't that bad.