4 ms·

The amount of time lost to doing Scrum things was so out of control that some people had fewer than 3-4 hours per day to actually work. If the aggregate of the

The amount of time lost to doing Scrum things was so out of control that some people had fewer than 3-4 hours per day to actually work. If the aggregate of the sprint planning, backlog refinement, retro and dailies is more than 10% of the total time (eg 1 full day out of a 10 day sprint) for most of the team then something bizarre is going on. If the everyone is losing 50% of their time to agile things then your process is impressively broken.

calvinmorrison 3y ago
Until you're on 4 teams
- michaelt 3y ago
  If a person is in 4 teams, and they're not a full-time 'product owner' where going to meetings is their whole job, I'd say something bizarre is going on.
  - kjs3 3y ago
    I don't think it's that 'bizarre'. My team has been an overlay team for years. We provide services to many teams. Since the glorious transition to agile and product focus, we had to sacrifice someone to be the product owner, so their 'whole job' is overhead management, which they hate. Now, every team wants someone from my team in every standup ("but we'll be blocked if a question for your team comes up and no one is standing in the corner patiently waiting to answer it") and definitely wants someone in every sprint planning. 8-ish person team, dozens of projects, and time disappears very, very fast. I've managed to push back on the 'every standup' nonsense so we don't spend 100% of our time in meetings, and in return the agile folks are using their 'metrics' to basically tut-tut and say we don't do any work. I can see where if your whole job is on a single project where there workstream can be easily decomposed into 'sprint-size' chunks, agile and the rest are probably useful. But that's not every job, and maybe not most jobs, and it sure as hell isn't my job. But like so many other have concurred, and as I see on a routine basis, there will be someone with 'Agile' or 'Coach' or 'Product' in their job title will have an expansive explanation why I'm Doing It WRONG. Capital One seems to have figured it out...maybe there's hope[1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/capital-one-scraps-1100-tech-positions-source-2023-01-19/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/capital-one-scraps-1100-t...
    - onion2k 3y ago
      every team wants someone from my team in every standup In agile you're supposed to know what's going into your sprint, and each ticket should meet your "definition of ready". Teams shouldn't need someone on hand because they should already have refined and unblocked issues before the ticket was added to the sprint. Whatever it is you're doing it isn't agile.
      - kjs3 3y ago
        Well sure. That's the default response: "It's not us, it's you". But I can't help thinking "We have dozens of dedicated 'agile leaders', several dozens more 'agile coaches' who have various certifications, commitment from management and have hundreds if not thousands of people who have gone through multi-hour (at least) agile training. If we're still doing it so obviously wrong, maybe it's the methodology and not the people.".
  - sdiupIGPWEfh 3y ago
    How many teams before you consider it bizarre? As a mere individual contributor / senior dev, I've only ever officially been assigned to a single team at once, but there are times when I'm juggling tickets on 3 different teams' Jira boards and attending 3 different standup meetings. Thankfully, I typically don't have to worry about sitting in on more than 2 teams at once, and I'm definitely an outlier. For me, this arose from joining a growing team before it split several times and also from predating all the current product owners.
j4yav 3y ago
It’s funny how every team I have worked on that embraced scrum was impressively broken in the exact same way.
- pillefitz 3y ago
  Interesting, I never experienced a team broken by Scrum. Just a retro, planning, demo, 15min daily and that's about it. Lots of other meetings, yes, but none of them due to Scrum, but rather complex company processes.

calvinmorrison 3y ago

Until you're on 4 teams

michaelt 3y ago
If a person is in 4 teams, and they're not a full-time 'product owner' where going to meetings is their whole job, I'd say something bizarre is going on.
- kjs3 3y ago
  I don't think it's that 'bizarre'. My team has been an overlay team for years. We provide services to many teams. Since the glorious transition to agile and product focus, we had to sacrifice someone to be the product owner, so their 'whole job' is overhead management, which they hate. Now, every team wants someone from my team in every standup ("but we'll be blocked if a question for your team comes up and no one is standing in the corner patiently waiting to answer it") and definitely wants someone in every sprint planning. 8-ish person team, dozens of projects, and time disappears very, very fast. I've managed to push back on the 'every standup' nonsense so we don't spend 100% of our time in meetings, and in return the agile folks are using their 'metrics' to basically tut-tut and say we don't do any work. I can see where if your whole job is on a single project where there workstream can be easily decomposed into 'sprint-size' chunks, agile and the rest are probably useful. But that's not every job, and maybe not most jobs, and it sure as hell isn't my job. But like so many other have concurred, and as I see on a routine basis, there will be someone with 'Agile' or 'Coach' or 'Product' in their job title will have an expansive explanation why I'm Doing It WRONG. Capital One seems to have figured it out...maybe there's hope[1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/capital-one-scraps-1100-tech-positions-source-2023-01-19/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/capital-one-scraps-1100-t...
  - onion2k 3y ago
    every team wants someone from my team in every standup In agile you're supposed to know what's going into your sprint, and each ticket should meet your "definition of ready". Teams shouldn't need someone on hand because they should already have refined and unblocked issues before the ticket was added to the sprint. Whatever it is you're doing it isn't agile.
    - kjs3 3y ago
      Well sure. That's the default response: "It's not us, it's you". But I can't help thinking "We have dozens of dedicated 'agile leaders', several dozens more 'agile coaches' who have various certifications, commitment from management and have hundreds if not thousands of people who have gone through multi-hour (at least) agile training. If we're still doing it so obviously wrong, maybe it's the methodology and not the people.".
- sdiupIGPWEfh 3y ago
  How many teams before you consider it bizarre? As a mere individual contributor / senior dev, I've only ever officially been assigned to a single team at once, but there are times when I'm juggling tickets on 3 different teams' Jira boards and attending 3 different standup meetings. Thankfully, I typically don't have to worry about sitting in on more than 2 teams at once, and I'm definitely an outlier. For me, this arose from joining a growing team before it split several times and also from predating all the current product owners.

j4yav 3y ago

It’s funny how every team I have worked on that embraced scrum was impressively broken in the exact same way.

pillefitz 3y ago
Interesting, I never experienced a team broken by Scrum. Just a retro, planning, demo, 15min daily and that's about it. Lots of other meetings, yes, but none of them due to Scrum, but rather complex company processes.