3 ms·

How much time are you spending on these artifacts? Sprint planning and 'tickets' should take at most a few hours a sprint for developers (my effort is much hi

How much time are you spending on these artifacts? Sprint planning and 'tickets' should take at most a few hours a sprint for developers (my effort is much higher, of course), standups are 15 minutes a day, points are just estimates.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
The vast majority doesn't behave like this in practice. Inb4 "That's not Scrum" yes, we know.
- Ensorceled 4y ago
  Right, I'm trying to lead the OP there :-) I've worked, briefly as a contractor, in one these places before: full day sprint planning, 3 hour retrospectives, 1-2 hour standups, breakdowns of simple stories into sub stories etc. etc. ... but I didn't blame scrum and points for the fact I was miserable.
  - OJFord 4y ago
    I think your point is kind of what I was alluding to with the 'or makes it [i.e. it exists without it] unapologetically transparent' parenthetical? Certainly it's not 'scrum' per se that bothers me - I was carefully not saying 'agile' because I think that's fine it's just the typical method of 'doing it' that I meant, but seem to have fallen into a different trap in the process - but it is the breaking down of the job into actionable work pieces, 'tickets', and some of the ceremony around that, whether strictly 'scrum' or not. But that's just me right, obviously some (lots of) people like it! My initial comment was that it's surprising (to me) how few seem to not like it, so I'm perfectly aware that's just my (and some few others') opinion.
    - Ensorceled 4y ago
      > But that's just me right, obviously some (lots of) people like it! My initial comment was that it's surprising (to me) how few seem to not like it, so I'm perfectly aware that's just my (and some few others') opinion. I guess it's a continuum ... I have people on my team right now that are working on a single story, other people who have a few dozen this sprint. If your team is breaking down what would be a single story on my team ... I could see that being annoying. Now, the developer working on that story has a breakdown of tasks that they are managing as sub items in the story, but that's not getting managed with story points or any other heavy weight system.
OJFord 4y ago
It's not really about the time it takes for me, it's the division of work into tiny boring pieces, such that they often feel like they're taking as long to discuss & 'estimate complexity' (don't get me started - we don't have 'capacity' for a certain 'amount of complexity' within a.. two week period, so stop pretending it's not a time estimate - anyway..) as they would to do. I'm reminded slightly of an article submitted here recently - https://martinfowler.com/articles/bottlenecks-of-scaleups/03-product-v-engineering.html https://martinfowler.com/articles/bottlenecks-of-scaleups/03... (though they're not really discussing motivation as such) - it's the detachment of engineering from product, I suppose. Little 'ownership' of or time to spend on thinking about the product experience, just 'do this', 'add that'. If I compare to people I know in other professions - accounting, doctors, tax - they all work more directly with a client or case, manage their own work. Of course they have managers too, but that relationship is more like 'I need some help with this problem that has arisen, let me now brief you on what I've been doing because otherwise you have no context' or longer-term performance etc. - not 'what tiny thing(s) did you do yesterday and which tiny thing(s) will you do today' every bloody morning.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  > 's the division of work into tiny boring pieces This is only useful if you want to ship changes iteratively. If you're working a on a big blob of a thing that can have waterfall-style estimation and delivery then you'll avoid all that. > it's the detachment of engineering from product, I suppose This is more likely the cause. The emergence of product as a ruling class over engineering is a problem. Product is a useful concept, but I think we've all assumed only a person with a Product job title can be a product owner in a team, when I think Product adds much more value as a slightly more distant integration point for engineering, marketing, sales, customer support, legal, etc.
  - Viliam1234 4y ago
    > If you're working a on a big blob of a thing that can have waterfall-style estimation and delivery then you'll avoid all that. It seems that among the cool kids, "waterfall" is considered a bad thing that everyone should avoid. I admit I miss the days when I could have spent weeks working on a project without being interrupted by daily "agile" meetings.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago

The vast majority doesn't behave like this in practice. Inb4 "That's not Scrum" yes, we know.

Ensorceled 4y ago
Right, I'm trying to lead the OP there :-) I've worked, briefly as a contractor, in one these places before: full day sprint planning, 3 hour retrospectives, 1-2 hour standups, breakdowns of simple stories into sub stories etc. etc. ... but I didn't blame scrum and points for the fact I was miserable.
- OJFord 4y ago
  I think your point is kind of what I was alluding to with the 'or makes it [i.e. it exists without it] unapologetically transparent' parenthetical? Certainly it's not 'scrum' per se that bothers me - I was carefully not saying 'agile' because I think that's fine it's just the typical method of 'doing it' that I meant, but seem to have fallen into a different trap in the process - but it is the breaking down of the job into actionable work pieces, 'tickets', and some of the ceremony around that, whether strictly 'scrum' or not. But that's just me right, obviously some (lots of) people like it! My initial comment was that it's surprising (to me) how few seem to not like it, so I'm perfectly aware that's just my (and some few others') opinion.
  - Ensorceled 4y ago
    > But that's just me right, obviously some (lots of) people like it! My initial comment was that it's surprising (to me) how few seem to not like it, so I'm perfectly aware that's just my (and some few others') opinion. I guess it's a continuum ... I have people on my team right now that are working on a single story, other people who have a few dozen this sprint. If your team is breaking down what would be a single story on my team ... I could see that being annoying. Now, the developer working on that story has a breakdown of tasks that they are managing as sub items in the story, but that's not getting managed with story points or any other heavy weight system.

OJFord 4y ago

It's not really about the time it takes for me, it's the division of work into tiny boring pieces, such that they often feel like they're taking as long to discuss & 'estimate complexity' (don't get me started - we don't have 'capacity' for a certain 'amount of complexity' within a.. two week period, so stop pretending it's not a time estimate - anyway..) as they would to do. I'm reminded slightly of an article submitted here recently - https://martinfowler.com/articles/bottlenecks-of-scaleups/03-product-v-engineering.html https://martinfowler.com/articles/bottlenecks-of-scaleups/03... (though they're not really discussing motivation as such) - it's the detachment of engineering from product, I suppose. Little 'ownership' of or time to spend on thinking about the product experience, just 'do this', 'add that'. If I compare to people I know in other professions - accounting, doctors, tax - they all work more directly with a client or case, manage their own work. Of course they have managers too, but that relationship is more like 'I need some help with this problem that has arisen, let me now brief you on what I've been doing because otherwise you have no context' or longer-term performance etc. - not 'what tiny thing(s) did you do yesterday and which tiny thing(s) will you do today' every bloody morning.

robertlagrant 4y ago
> 's the division of work into tiny boring pieces This is only useful if you want to ship changes iteratively. If you're working a on a big blob of a thing that can have waterfall-style estimation and delivery then you'll avoid all that. > it's the detachment of engineering from product, I suppose This is more likely the cause. The emergence of product as a ruling class over engineering is a problem. Product is a useful concept, but I think we've all assumed only a person with a Product job title can be a product owner in a team, when I think Product adds much more value as a slightly more distant integration point for engineering, marketing, sales, customer support, legal, etc.
- Viliam1234 4y ago
  > If you're working a on a big blob of a thing that can have waterfall-style estimation and delivery then you'll avoid all that. It seems that among the cool kids, "waterfall" is considered a bad thing that everyone should avoid. I admit I miss the days when I could have spent weeks working on a project without being interrupted by daily "agile" meetings.