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Scrum disempowers developers

lambdacambridge.com

11–20 of 382 posts

Re: Scrum disempowers developers

#11
My biggest beef with Scrum (and why I think it's a scam) is that they renamed everything, all the processes.

Historically, there are three important sides, and roles, for each project. Product management - takes care what the customer wants to have build. Project management - takes care of what is delivered is on schedule and that there is enough material/personnel to build it. Architect/engineering lead - takes care of whether the thing is technically feasible, what technologies are used and what technical trade-offs are made.

And there was a vast literature and discussion about how these three sides affect the result of the project, and how to solve these problems.

Unfortunately, Scrum, renaming everything, acts as if the history of project management doesn't exist. And if you forget history, how are you supposed to learn from it? That makes it easy to sell snake-oil. I frequently hear, for instance, that scrum master is not a project manager, despite him having some responsibilities in this area.

And as the blog post also expounds, there is no recognition for these three different sides of each project in Scrum (ironically, there is some recognition of that in Scrum derivatives such as Scaled Agile Framework, for instance, modulo nonsensical renaming of the roles).

Re: Scrum disempowers developers

#12
post #6

What’s that quote from Elon Musk - process is an excuse for large companies to keep mediocre talent? Put enough smart people in a room and they’ll figure it out. Scrum isn’t any worse than Kanban or ‘pure’ Agile or Waterfall or Lean — every system has tradeoffs and smart people learn to adjust. No company is perfect. Tell management how the process can be improved. If they ignore you, consider moving on.

> What’s that quote from Elon Musk - process is an excuse for large companies to keep mediocre talent? Isn’t he the same guy who’s been learning that more process is necessary to make cars safely and on-schedule? I’d be reluctant to draw any broad conclusion from one optimistic aphorism.

But the essential difference is that process applied to manufacturing is about repeatability, quality, reliability etc. where process in software is more about communication.

Eventually, maybe, a software process will be more like a manufacturing one but the variation in technologies, techniques and general fashion make that hard - even in limited areas such as CRUD web apps. I think you'd get the same outcomes with a manufacturing process as we currently get with software if every year you changed the engines, materials, electronics and transmissions.

Re: Scrum disempowers developers

#13
post #6

What’s that quote from Elon Musk - process is an excuse for large companies to keep mediocre talent? Put enough smart people in a room and they’ll figure it out. Scrum isn’t any worse than Kanban or ‘pure’ Agile or Waterfall or Lean — every system has tradeoffs and smart people learn to adjust. No company is perfect. Tell management how the process can be improved. If they ignore you, consider moving on.

> What’s that quote from Elon Musk - process is an excuse for large companies to keep mediocre talent? Isn’t he the same guy who’s been learning that more process is necessary to make cars safely and on-schedule? I’d be reluctant to draw any broad conclusion from one optimistic aphorism.

Has he really been learning anything at all?

Re: Scrum disempowers developers

#14
post #11

My biggest beef with Scrum (and why I think it's a scam) is that they renamed everything, all the processes. Historically, there are three important sides, and roles, for each project. Product management - takes care what the customer wants to have build. Project management - takes care of what is delivered is on schedule and that there is enough material/personnel to build it. Architect/engineering lead - takes care…

Scrum didn't rename any of them. They added the roles of scrum master and product owner but those are roles that can be assigned to people with traditional titles in addition to their normal roles.

Re: Scrum disempowers developers

#15
> Finally we have this self-organised, cross-functional, non-hierarchical, essentially amorphous development team. They are meant to be self organising, with no one telling them how to build the product backlog. However, they have limited or no say over what is top of the product backlog, pressure to deliver something sprint-after-sprint, and no-one with the authority to balance the product owner and advocate for developing with higher quality. In fact, the whole way Scrum views the development team is completely flawed given how real organisations operate.

Setting up the scene to fail, and then, surprise, it fails. Blame it on scrum.

Re: Scrum disempowers developers

#17
post #15

> Finally we have this self-organised, cross-functional, non-hierarchical, essentially amorphous development team. They are meant to be self organising, with no one telling them how to build the product backlog. However, they have limited or no say over what is top of the product backlog, pressure to deliver something sprint-after-sprint, and no-one with the authority to balance the product owner and advocate for dev…

"no-one with the authority to balance the product owner and advocate for developing with higher quality"

In a functional scrum team everyone on the team should be empowered to advocate this. In turn the product owner should be receptive to technical improvement because it is in the interest ultimately of the overall project success.

Re: Scrum disempowers developers

#18
post #6

What’s that quote from Elon Musk - process is an excuse for large companies to keep mediocre talent? Put enough smart people in a room and they’ll figure it out. Scrum isn’t any worse than Kanban or ‘pure’ Agile or Waterfall or Lean — every system has tradeoffs and smart people learn to adjust. No company is perfect. Tell management how the process can be improved. If they ignore you, consider moving on.

> What’s that quote from Elon Musk - process is an excuse for large companies to keep mediocre talent? Isn’t he the same guy who’s been learning that more process is necessary to make cars safely and on-schedule? I’d be reluctant to draw any broad conclusion from one optimistic aphorism.

Maybe he has a problem in finding smart people in sufficient quantity, so he has backtracked to the "process".

Re: Scrum disempowers developers

#19

OP here: lots of people have written about problems with Scrum (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16892307 ). I'm trying to take a bit more of a systematic, longer, researched and justified view of things, so any feedback is very welcome!

Here's my one piece of feedback: It's all well and good if you look at places where Scrum has failed, but if you don't look at places where Scrum has succeeded, and offer an analysis there, the research is meaningless.

Currently it feels like you're limiting your scope of research to places where Scrum has failed. Is it any surprise, then, that your research has supported your thesis?

Re: Scrum disempowers developers

#20
post #11

My biggest beef with Scrum (and why I think it's a scam) is that they renamed everything, all the processes. Historically, there are three important sides, and roles, for each project. Product management - takes care what the customer wants to have build. Project management - takes care of what is delivered is on schedule and that there is enough material/personnel to build it. Architect/engineering lead - takes care…

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