People who don’t use scrum or sprints or any of it, two questions: 1. Do you actually have very few meeting and all of them are meaningful and useful? 2. Is you

People who don’t use scrum or sprints or any of it, two questions: 1. Do you actually have very few meeting and all of them are meaningful and useful? 2. Is your work predictable and both devs and PMs have a reasonable idea of how much work is coming up and the nature of the work? I’ve worked on “no sprint” teams and I end up having several “weekly checkin” meetings for different projects, plus intermittent “stand ups” that lack a clear focus, plus my manager discussing tactical matters in 1:1s and the work plan is still a clusterfuck where it’s hard to know what’s priority, what work is coming up, ensuring we have requirements clarified before starting work etc.. The biggest mistake I see people making with sprints is not understanding that you cluster your planning over 1-2 days then you have 2-3 weeks with basically zero meetings besides standup or working meetings like system design. The benefit of scrum is lots of heads down time, the cost is you’re not allowed to just book meetings Willy nilly whenever you want. Most places I’ve worked have wanted the benefit of sprints but not understood or been willing to pay the cost (no-meeting weeks). So it’s agile rituals plus whatever other meetings you already had, and of course that sucks. I feel like agile processes are this boogeyman and people think “just get rid of them and we’ll be good!” but you need some process or else work is chaotic. So what’s the better process that works for you?