You don’t need standups • Hacker News Board

Re: You don’t need standups

#221

Post by j4kp07 » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 1:26 AM UTC

kerbalspacepro wrote: post #91

some_account wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I don't want a team mate to look at something I'm working on? What if I just want to focus on building, not explaining and sharing? The current trend of "agile" is just another form of micro management. It's not good for the programmers at all, it's only good for product owners and team leads who are coordinating resources. Because it's micro management. We just call it something else now. It forces developer…

1. Agile is not personally great for programmers. 2. Agile is good for managers. 3. Managers run the business and make sure it exists. 4. Programmers need the business in order to have a job. 5. Agile is therefore good for the business, 6. And therefore Agile is good for Programmers, though not personally.

Unfortunately, you have been taught and are executing Agile in the completely wrong fashion. My first guess would be, you are actually working in Waterfall, but your managers have labeled it Agile and cherry-picked the parts they liked.

Re: You don’t need standups

#222

Post by tchaffee » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 1:27 AM UTC

zmmmmm wrote: post #198

vfc1 wrote: post #81

Standups always felt to me that they had a core negative message to developers. It's not about communication at all. Its about control, its about saying: We don't trust you. We are going to check on you to see what you are doing, every single day, because you are not a responsible adult and need constant surveillance. Its also about putting constant psychological pressure on developers, to make sure they complete the…

Not really a fan of standups either, but I want to express a counter point: developers consistently over-estimate their understanding of the problem domain they are working in and the wider context it sits in. That is yes, managers don't "trust" developers - but not in quite as negative a sense as you think. There is a positive aspect of supporting the person, ensuring they are connected to the right resources to suc…

I wish more devs understood what you said instead of taking it as being micro managed. In short, what good managers distrust is the ability to communicate. We are all pretty bad at it. These meetings just give us an opportunity to continually refine what it is we are actually working towards. Agile to me doesn't mean daily standups. It does mean sharing with each other what we've learned about the problem which almost always means reprioritizing. If that communication isn't happening at least a few times a week, there's something off or unusual.

Re: You don’t need standups

#223

Post by fao_ » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 1:36 AM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #174

ahelwer wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's useless because everybody else tunes out. Nobody cares what debugging methods you tried on some project they've never touched. If you need help you can just ask somebody.

I think your team is too big then. Don't have company wide standups, have a standup per team and possibly role. If you're working on a web stack have a standup where the backend devs talk, one for the DBAs (if that's a thing you have) one for the front-end people... If there's someone in a product manager role they might want to attend all the meetings but likely not. If a clear majority of the audience isn't interes…

> I think your team is too big then. Don't have company wide standups, have a standup per team and possibly role. If you're working on a web stack have a standup where the backend devs talk, one for the DBAs (if that's a thing you have) one for the front-end people... If there's someone in a product manager role they might want to attend all the meetings but likely not.

This would be better solved by hosting specific IRC channels for those roles and having occasional role-specific meets/lunches to introduce new people.

Re: You don’t need standups

#224

Post by peterwwillis » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 1:43 AM UTC

I love the fact that none of this exists in open source projects. All communication is done immediately using IRC, mailing lists, and bugs/tickets. Nobody has to follow a development methodology. You volunteer to contribute to the things planned in the roadmap. You get shit done when you get around to it. When it's ready, it's ready.

I hate the fact that if you're not following a bullshit development methodology (and usually poorly) you're treated like there's something wrong with you.

Re: You don’t need standups

#225

Post by windows_tips » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 1:59 AM UTC

reledi wrote: post #195

jrs235 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If a clear majority of the audience isn't interested in your status then you're just burning hours. From my understanding stand ups are not supposed to be status reports. They tend to turn into them though as it seems the most common format is 1) what did you work on yesterday, 2) what are you working on today, 3) what's blocking you? I prefer daily stand ups (near the onset of the day) for small teams to be 1) what…

If you're doing kanban and work in an environment where product direction changes quickly, then definitely this. If your standup can be replaced with everyone posting on a slack channel, then it's just a status update as there's no discussion and alignment happening, which are the valuable parts. Most teams should experiment with their process more.

The standup should be with the people on the current sprint. Alignment should have happened in earlier planning stages. "Discussion" is (should be) highly structured in a daily standup and any discussion that is like a dialog should be placed in the parking lot until the meeting ends, when only those interested in that discussion need to attend.

Re: You don’t need standups

#226

Post by windows_tips » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 2:01 AM UTC

kerbalspacepro wrote: post #91

some_account wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I don't want a team mate to look at something I'm working on? What if I just want to focus on building, not explaining and sharing? The current trend of "agile" is just another form of micro management. It's not good for the programmers at all, it's only good for product owners and team leads who are coordinating resources. Because it's micro management. We just call it something else now. It forces developer…

1. Agile is not personally great for programmers. 2. Agile is good for managers. 3. Managers run the business and make sure it exists. 4. Programmers need the business in order to have a job. 5. Agile is therefore good for the business, 6. And therefore Agile is good for Programmers, though not personally.

4. Managers need the Programmers, to make sure the business exists.

5. Agile may or may not be good for Programmers.

6. Agile may or may not be good for the business.

Re: You don’t need standups

#227

Post by dudeofea » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 2:02 AM UTC

some_account wrote: post #82

chomp wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"working on bugs" is not a great update, it's opaque and doesn't help your team or your leader get a picture of what you're struggling with. "I tried this and this and measured this latency from the application and suspect it's a race condition, I checked this code and feel like I'm on the right track, and if someone wants to take a second set of eyes on my bug I would appreciate it" is a much much better update. Sta…

What if I don't want a team mate to look at something I'm working on? What if I just want to focus on building, not explaining and sharing? The current trend of "agile" is just another form of micro management. It's not good for the programmers at all, it's only good for product owners and team leads who are coordinating resources. Because it's micro management. We just call it something else now. It forces developer…

Screw these other commenters saying you're a stubborn introvert. If I had a company, I would hire you. I have the same view.

Micro management erodes trust, which deskills programmers. If you know the exact bounds of what a programmer that you hired can do, then they can never do anything exceptional. I understand large companies need reliable workers because they are working on cornering their market, but for startups, or just for anyone going after something that's never been done, you need to take a risk, and that risk includes your programmers as well.

What's more, there's a small but important difference between being told to go to a meeting and converse with other employees, or CEOs, or clients to get some external validation on your work, and choosing to seek out those people of your own free will. I agree that no programmer can silo themselves off and "do work", but that doesn't mean we have to infantilize them and spoonfeed them their feedback.

A fisherman knows how to catch fish, so why are you telling him what lure to use and how to cast his line rather than just letting natural competition takes it's course and allowing him to become jealous of the better fisherman and having him improve. "Didn't catch a fish today" "well you should've used the red lures like Bob does". Do you want a better fisherman? or do you want the same fisherman?

Re: You don’t need standups

#228

Post by fouc » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 2:15 AM UTC

some_account wrote: post #82

chomp wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"working on bugs" is not a great update, it's opaque and doesn't help your team or your leader get a picture of what you're struggling with. "I tried this and this and measured this latency from the application and suspect it's a race condition, I checked this code and feel like I'm on the right track, and if someone wants to take a second set of eyes on my bug I would appreciate it" is a much much better update. Sta…

What if I don't want a team mate to look at something I'm working on? What if I just want to focus on building, not explaining and sharing? The current trend of "agile" is just another form of micro management. It's not good for the programmers at all, it's only good for product owners and team leads who are coordinating resources. Because it's micro management. We just call it something else now. It forces developer…

There's still code review right? And if you're off building something more involved, then hopefully that code review is happening on a weekly basis with at least 2 people reviewing it so that there's input and ideas and corrections happening. It's brutal to see someone waste time on building out unnecessary parts, etc. Plus it's also useful to reduce bus factor, have other people in the loop to pick up the work if necessary.

Re: You don’t need standups

#229

Post by taneq » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 2:16 AM UTC

drunken-serval wrote: post #135

s73v3r_ wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Isn't the standup usually the place you're told to initially ask for that help? 2. Aren't most people, at least the developers/designers in the same standup, supposed to be working on the same project?

#2 never happened at any job I've had. It was always the entire team and we all had different projects. Sometimes entirely different applications.

That sounds like you were all on different teams, in the sense being used here, and probably shouldn't have all been in the same standup together apart from maybe a once-a-week catchup.

Re: You don’t need standups

#230

Post by wnevets » Fri, Aug 03, 2018, 2:32 AM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #62

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #31

I always upvote these things, not because they're right. Because they show common misunderstandings about Agile. Agile is so simple and easy that the development community continues to screw it up. It's important to understand how. According to the author, standups are something companies require developers to do to report about what they're doing. Many times they can take more than a half hour. That may be true, but…

"agile" is great. "Agile" has been fucked to death by consultants and execs who just heard "wait you can make developers completely fungible and i can get something in 2 weeks rather than waiting for 2 years?" and never bothered to listen to anything else.

The moment someone says they're a certified scrum master you know you're fucked.