You don’t need standups
medium.com
You don’t need standups
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Re: You don’t need standups
#2A team where the Engineering Lead(or any kind of manager) thinks that you don't need retros because there are no problems is exactly the kind of team that needs retros.
Re: You don’t need standups
#3It's hard for me to dislike this, because I also find standups and sprint planning meetings to be painful and somewhat less than useful for myself.
On the other hand, when you are with a new team, or a team with a few people that need mentoring, or going in a new direction, I find that it's important to force people to coordinate, because many times people will just run off in random directions you don't want them to. You really have to have the best people, and trust their instincts if you follow what the article suggests. Any weak players on your team will just be lost and potentially set you back (or at best, just waste their time).
Re: You don’t need standups
#4It's hard for me to dislike this, because I also find standups and sprint planning meetings to be painful and somewhat less than useful for myself. On the other hand, when you are with a new team, or a team with a few people that need mentoring, or going in a new direction, I find that it's important to force people to coordinate, because many times people will just run off in random directions you don't want them to…
Exactly. This could work well in teams where the engineers are all competent and really just need the PM to stay out of their way.
In weak teams, this could easily see an end-of-quarter with unmet deliverables and other management messes. A lot of people would take advantage of the hands-off approach as much as they could.
Either way, Agile is ridiculous so I agree with the author about that.
Re: You don’t need standups
#5Bull-fucking-shit; you know why Spotify's engineering team does well? Stripe's? Netflix's? Because they have money, they have money so they can buy the best engineers. You ever see a small business development team compete on their level that isn't a bespoke design firm?
In my world, my team isn't an olympic-performing high-end software engineering pack. They don't lead in particular subfields in FOSS in their spare time. So you know what? They need fucking plans.
This article is a glorified, "Well if you're good you don't need process," piece.
Re: You don’t need standups
#6I'd really like to hear thoughts on how this applies to remote teams. I find that async standups via slack are pretty damn helpful for keeping everyone appraised of what is going on across 5 timezones.
Process and communication are kind of key, aren't they?
Re: You don’t need standups
#7While I do agree with the sentiment of reducing meetings and time spent planning, I don't believe that removing all scheduled communication and planning is a good answer. This approach is especially problematic for teams that are working more directly on rapidly changing business concerns. Communication, planning and analysis are quite important for teams with members who need regular guidance or teams with lots of distinct roles.
Re: You don’t need standups
#8A team where the Engineering Lead(or any kind of manager) thinks that you don't need retros because there are no problems is exactly the kind of team that needs retros.
You may have missed the part where the author says that problems should be addressed as they come up and not just once at the end of the week.
A retro obligates people to find and/or bring up issues. In my opinion an open door policy would push people to bring up things that actually matter.
Re: You don’t need standups
#9Bull-fucking-shit; you know why Spotify's engineering team does well? Stripe's? Netflix's? Because they have money , they have money so they can buy the best engineers. You ever see a small business development team compete on their level that isn't a bespoke design firm? In my world, my team isn't an olympic-performing high-end software engineering pack. They don't lead in particular subfields in FOSS in their spare…
I didn't see it that way. The article argues for a very clear and curated Backlog of tasks. If engineers can't define tasks well and PM lacks understanding to structure backlog well then no amount of Engineering Olympians will help.
Re: You don’t need standups
#10Bull-fucking-shit; you know why Spotify's engineering team does well? Stripe's? Netflix's? Because they have money , they have money so they can buy the best engineers. You ever see a small business development team compete on their level that isn't a bespoke design firm? In my world, my team isn't an olympic-performing high-end software engineering pack. They don't lead in particular subfields in FOSS in their spare…
Would you please not rant like this to HN? You may have a substantive point in there but you need to make it more thoughtfully.