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I can barely read the title of this article without feeling an almost irresistible urge to say something nasty about scrum. Yet I'm not entirely sure why. I do

I can barely read the title of this article without feeling an almost irresistible urge to say something nasty about scrum. Yet I'm not entirely sure why. I don't think it's due to any specific requirement of scrum. Actually planning work in small increments, catching up with your team regularly, looking back and reviewing how things went, etc etc are mostly obviously good things. I think it's the mistaken idea that a project manager can learn how to manage a team of software developers by learning scrum which I really dislike. I think that a good manager would do all of the core things scrum recommends more or less instinctively and wouldn't need an explicit process or framework to tell them how. Whereas someone who has learnt the scrum process but doesn't know how to code ends up creating a kind of ritualistic performance of management which is incredibly ineffective. Often it feels like people believe they following scrum methods will let you run a team well without an expensive experienced manager, but this is not the case.

xedrac 2y ago
Few things are as soul sucking and demotivating as scrum. It seems to always devolve into something hostile to productivity and creativity, resulting in low morale.
- kriiuuu 2y ago
  Yes. I hate it with a passion. Pointless meetings, planning that doesn’t matter and endless timesinks. The only devs I can imagine liking it are the ones that don’t want to take responsibility of the product backlog nor want to think about feature implementation. They just want micromanaged tiny tasks that tell then what to do next, a life void of responsibility.
seadan83 2y ago
Managing a team of software developers by fitting them into a project management process is certainly not "Agile". Yet, yeah - I would agree that is what happens.. The distinction between agile development and agile project management I think is often lost. The article starts with viewing "Agile" as a project management process first and only. The fact it was originally always intended [1] to be a development process and not a project management process is seemingly lost. [1] Per interviews with Uncle Bob & Martin Fowler, Ward Cunningham, and other signatories of the agile manifesto [2]. I can try to dig up the specific interviews and quotes if requested. [2] https://agilemanifesto.org/authors.html https://agilemanifesto.org/authors.html

xedrac 2y ago

Few things are as soul sucking and demotivating as scrum. It seems to always devolve into something hostile to productivity and creativity, resulting in low morale.

kriiuuu 2y ago
Yes. I hate it with a passion. Pointless meetings, planning that doesn’t matter and endless timesinks. The only devs I can imagine liking it are the ones that don’t want to take responsibility of the product backlog nor want to think about feature implementation. They just want micromanaged tiny tasks that tell then what to do next, a life void of responsibility.

seadan83 2y ago

Managing a team of software developers by fitting them into a project management process is certainly not "Agile". Yet, yeah - I would agree that is what happens.. The distinction between agile development and agile project management I think is often lost. The article starts with viewing "Agile" as a project management process first and only. The fact it was originally always intended [1] to be a development process and not a project management process is seemingly lost. [1] Per interviews with Uncle Bob & Martin Fowler, Ward Cunningham, and other signatories of the agile manifesto [2]. I can try to dig up the specific interviews and quotes if requested. [2] https://agilemanifesto.org/authors.html https://agilemanifesto.org/authors.html