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PM doesnt attend standups most of the time. There is a "scrum master" assigned but that is not a real role, its just round robin and ever engineer gets to do th

PM doesnt attend standups most of the time. There is a "scrum master" assigned but that is not a real role, its just round robin and ever engineer gets to do the role. The scrum master just calls out people's names (team is in person + online) and asks them to provide updates. No one, not including the scrum master updates anything. Though I am up to speed, but PM is not and this becomes challenging for them (and sometimes for me too if I am unable to attend standups)

solardev 1y ago
Sounds like your process is a little broken and dogmatic and useless, which can happen if people follow Agile blindly. Can you tweak it to make it more useful for your team? Encourage what works and drop what doesn't.
- propernun 1y ago
  We follow the canonical agile, or we think we do. Backlog grooming->Sprint planning->Standups->Retros->Backlog grooming. What else is missing in this process? Seems like this problem of engineers not updating their tasks is very unique to my team maybe? Could this be solved by process, or incentives, or tools?
  - solardev 1y ago
    Canonical and capital-A Agile never, ever works in my (admittedly limited) experience. Part of the original Agile philosophy was "people over process", but when you get overly dogmatic about it and hire consultants etc. and try to enforce every little ceremony, those thoughtful guidelines then become corrupted into a useless bureaucracy that prioritizes process above all else, even when the process is no longer working or serving the team. Forget the official methodology, talk to your team and tell them you realize the process isn't working and ask them what would be a good way to give the stakeholders the updates they need without imposing undue work on the ICs. Sometimes a simple and well-tolerated kanban that people update as needed is more effective than rigid daily rituals hated by everyone.

solardev 1y ago

Sounds like your process is a little broken and dogmatic and useless, which can happen if people follow Agile blindly. Can you tweak it to make it more useful for your team? Encourage what works and drop what doesn't.

propernun 1y ago
We follow the canonical agile, or we think we do. Backlog grooming->Sprint planning->Standups->Retros->Backlog grooming. What else is missing in this process? Seems like this problem of engineers not updating their tasks is very unique to my team maybe? Could this be solved by process, or incentives, or tools?
- solardev 1y ago
  Canonical and capital-A Agile never, ever works in my (admittedly limited) experience. Part of the original Agile philosophy was "people over process", but when you get overly dogmatic about it and hire consultants etc. and try to enforce every little ceremony, those thoughtful guidelines then become corrupted into a useless bureaucracy that prioritizes process above all else, even when the process is no longer working or serving the team. Forget the official methodology, talk to your team and tell them you realize the process isn't working and ask them what would be a good way to give the stakeholders the updates they need without imposing undue work on the ICs. Sometimes a simple and well-tolerated kanban that people update as needed is more effective than rigid daily rituals hated by everyone.