4 ms·

In my 15 years of experience in software engineering, I've never found it either. I have, however, wasted 1000s of hours playing with poker cards and Fibonacci

by ath3nd 3y ago

In my 15 years of experience in software engineering, I've never found it either. I have, however, wasted 1000s of hours playing with poker cards and Fibonacci numbers instead of actually working. But I get paid for this, so, I guess: yay, end stage corpo capitalism!

paulcole 3y ago
I think this is a common misinterpretation that many people fall prey to. “It’s wasting my time so it must be bad.” Your employers aren’t optimizing for your personal productivity and happiness. They don’t mind if you waste 1000s of hours with poker cards and Fibonacci numbers if their business goals are met. This can mean making one person upset and less productive if it makes progress towards a bigger goal.
- distortionfield 3y ago
  But it doesn’t make progress towards the bigger goal. That’s their whole point.
  - paulcole 3y ago
    All those companies failed to achieve their goals and went out of business? Just because you don’t see the progress and don’t like the process doesn’t mean progress isn’t being made.
    - boxed 3y ago
      In business it's not about achieving your goals fastest, it's about not being the slowest. Just like running from a lion. This is why these businesses survive. This is a common misunderstanding about market economies vs communism btw. In market economies there's a floor to the incompetence. In communism there is none. The ceiling isn't really different, but since there's a floor in one you will get a natural average higher in market economies. Pro-market people get this wrong all the time.
- ath3nd 3y ago
  How is blindly emulating some practices that you just read about in a Scrum guide gonna contribute to the business goals of the company? The perversion of the industry is that sleazy manager/business/coaching/scrum types weasel their way into software engineering and somehow want both respect, attention, and people following what they prescribe is "THE WAY". Imagine if the tables were turned. Developers present in all sales meetings and asking each individual sales person how much they think the call to this client is going to take in terms of story points. And how about we also go to HR and start interrogating them how many story points it takes to give somebody their office key? Busywork might be fun, but companies can do with much less, and achieve the same, or more than they do now. After 15 years in the industry and being both an IC, a manager, and currently a VP of Engineering, I can confidently state that the best strategy one can take to achieve their business goals is to leave the software engineering to the software engineers and step the heck out of their way. Wasting the time of people actually doing the work by arbitrary rituals you read about in a blog somewhere is not a good strategy for success. If we must go bother someone and treat them like children and force them to play cards, let's do it with another department for a change.
  - paulcole 3y ago
    > Imagine if the tables were turned. Developers present in all sales meetings and asking each individual sales person how much they think the call to this client is going to take in terms of story points. And how about we also go to HR and start interrogating them how many story points it takes to give somebody their office key? Busywork might be fun, but companies can do with much less, and achieve the same, or more than they do now. I think we should do this! People should be able to explain their processes and where their effort goes with a decent amount of accuracy. > Busywork might be fun, but companies can do with much less, and achieve the same, or more than they do now. A dangerous assumption to apply to all companies. Also the trick is deciding what "much less" looks like. Better hope you pick the right things. I'm not saying it can't be done. It's just hard. And in some cases, you'd rather just be 10% less productive (but still productive) by following a process you hate.
  - rrr_oh_man 3y ago
    I like you.

by ath3nd 3y ago

paulcole 3y ago

I think this is a common misinterpretation that many people fall prey to. “It’s wasting my time so it must be bad.” Your employers aren’t optimizing for your personal productivity and happiness. They don’t mind if you waste 1000s of hours with poker cards and Fibonacci numbers if their business goals are met. This can mean making one person upset and less productive if it makes progress towards a bigger goal.

distortionfield 3y ago
But it doesn’t make progress towards the bigger goal. That’s their whole point.
- paulcole 3y ago
  All those companies failed to achieve their goals and went out of business? Just because you don’t see the progress and don’t like the process doesn’t mean progress isn’t being made.
  - boxed 3y ago
    In business it's not about achieving your goals fastest, it's about not being the slowest. Just like running from a lion. This is why these businesses survive. This is a common misunderstanding about market economies vs communism btw. In market economies there's a floor to the incompetence. In communism there is none. The ceiling isn't really different, but since there's a floor in one you will get a natural average higher in market economies. Pro-market people get this wrong all the time.
ath3nd 3y ago
How is blindly emulating some practices that you just read about in a Scrum guide gonna contribute to the business goals of the company? The perversion of the industry is that sleazy manager/business/coaching/scrum types weasel their way into software engineering and somehow want both respect, attention, and people following what they prescribe is "THE WAY". Imagine if the tables were turned. Developers present in all sales meetings and asking each individual sales person how much they think the call to this client is going to take in terms of story points. And how about we also go to HR and start interrogating them how many story points it takes to give somebody their office key? Busywork might be fun, but companies can do with much less, and achieve the same, or more than they do now. After 15 years in the industry and being both an IC, a manager, and currently a VP of Engineering, I can confidently state that the best strategy one can take to achieve their business goals is to leave the software engineering to the software engineers and step the heck out of their way. Wasting the time of people actually doing the work by arbitrary rituals you read about in a blog somewhere is not a good strategy for success. If we must go bother someone and treat them like children and force them to play cards, let's do it with another department for a change.
- paulcole 3y ago
  > Imagine if the tables were turned. Developers present in all sales meetings and asking each individual sales person how much they think the call to this client is going to take in terms of story points. And how about we also go to HR and start interrogating them how many story points it takes to give somebody their office key? Busywork might be fun, but companies can do with much less, and achieve the same, or more than they do now. I think we should do this! People should be able to explain their processes and where their effort goes with a decent amount of accuracy. > Busywork might be fun, but companies can do with much less, and achieve the same, or more than they do now. A dangerous assumption to apply to all companies. Also the trick is deciding what "much less" looks like. Better hope you pick the right things. I'm not saying it can't be done. It's just hard. And in some cases, you'd rather just be 10% less productive (but still productive) by following a process you hate.
- rrr_oh_man 3y ago
  I like you.