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How big tech runs tech projects and the curious absence of Scrum

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Re: How big tech runs tech projects and the curious absence of Scrum

#111

Post by blunte »

If Skype is an example of Scrum done well, perhaps that explains why Skype has been very unreliable from and end user perspective for 5+ years... the kind of unreliable where more than half of the outgoing calls are met with instant "So-and-so-contact is not available." responses [edit, added: failure responses so quick that you know the contact was never called, and the problem was within your client app or the Skype systems. Different computers in different locations behaved the same.]

Maybe they were missing what I noticed missing from my last Scrum-focused company: view and attention from the higher altitudes.

Scrum makes it easy to break down features and problems into nice little pieces which can be done within one sprint (often in one day). That is a win in many ways, but it doesn't encourage higher level reviews, refactoring, etc. It's the problem of not seeing the forest for the trees.

Of course you can intentionally create epics for these kinds of reviews, but those don't have a good short-term return value for time spent. And so, they get inadvertently or intentionally postponed. Eventually the system is complex and messy, few people understand the system in entirety, and the easiest Scrummy solution is a re-write.

For me, Scrum was a straightjacket, a hundred NOs against my creativity and my attention to broader concerns. There are times when you are implementing a simple ticket, but you keep touching things that need attention... or you see how the entire system has become convoluted, and you see a better way. To do it the right way either means creating new epics and tickets, debating those with product owners who don't understand the value, and generally NOT solving the real problem.

Re: How big tech runs tech projects and the curious absence of Scrum

#112

Post by dboreham »

sparsely wrote: post #58
science4sail wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first seems like it would be very frustrating if code with failing tests if pushed with any frequency, but seems to be literally what the phase "work on main" means. Yep, that's the point - it's to discourage devs from checking in failing code (because then they'll be swarmed by annoyed coworkers). It's fairly common to see developer A make a breaking change to some low-level library and then see developer B pu…

If that's fairly common it doesn't seem like a great setup? Why not automatically run the tests beforehand? And presumably there is no need for a staging env, since your code is deployed to production as soon as it has passed tests.

Tests were run beforehand. Just not the right test.

Re: How big tech runs tech projects and the curious absence of Scrum

#113

Post by sumtechguy »

arcbyte wrote: post #89
throwaway5752 wrote: post #29

I really want to say this: SAFe is an awful process and a trend that will hopefully go the way of Unified Process/RUP. I won't go into it, but it's largely created and popularized by a vendor to sell their software. It is poison and exists to keep its practitioners employed. It attracts the highest-ego PMs like moths. I find it interesting that they author references Skype circa 2012. It sounds like classic "uppercas…

As a Dev, I loved SAFE. It changed everything about how our program operated to the point our delivery became extremely predictable and we still had every 9th and 10th week to tinker on new ideas or do refactoring and cleanup where we wanted. That program purred like nothing else I've ever been a part of. Senior leaders sat with devs, started talking to everyone about their priorities - people we had never seen befor…

These things are tools to be used. If you use focus on the tool and not the end user, things will go badly. Typically you will see teams that are very hyper focused on some particular metric (time, points, stories churned, etc). Yet not focusing on 'how do I get my customer what they need'. These tools help devs break down the tasks and tell the end users 'hey we only have this amount of time so focus!' If they become about metrics or just randomly skip steps that depend on each other, you will fail.

Re: How big tech runs tech projects and the curious absence of Scrum

#114

Post by desert_boi »

Scarblac wrote: post #78
mindvirus wrote: post #4

One pet peeve of mine: people often say they run a "lightweight" version of some project management philosophy and end up paying the costs of it without the benefits. For example lightweight agile scrum meaning sprints, but no retros and work constantly coming into and out of a sprint.

I have been on teams like that. It's just biweekly planning meetings. I don't see how that means you pay the full costs of something like Scrum.

Is biweekly twice a week or every two weeks? My previous gig had grooming/internal grooming every week. We had stand ups twice a week (biweekly). Almost all of these meetings were relatively worthless imo. They existed to justify a BA's position and "track velocity".

Re: How big tech runs tech projects and the curious absence of Scrum

#115

Post by Mehdi2277 »

lbriner wrote: post #61

I don't quite understand the "lack of Scrum in large companies" when they all seem to Plan-Ship-Build. That is pretty much the high level description of Scrum isn't it? Sure Scrum has some ceremonies, but these are basically planning and retrospective for improvements, so again, not really any different. At the end of the day, most of the ways I have worked end up with Tickets/PBIs/Stories and you work through them.…

I’ve worked at a couple big tech companies and one scrum. Notable differences, much less ceremonies, planning is also more up front with deviation allowed but not needing additional planning, and ticketing being optional thing that varies by team.

I do not usually track my current task with a ticket or story. I have once week meeting with my team to discuss what I did last week and what I’ll work on next week. There is no 2 week sprint/constant stand ups/individual ticket estimates/retro. A typical plan is for a project that will take a month on short side or 2 quarters on long side. Deadlines tend to be soft with it culturally accepted that most deadlines are rough estimates and a week or two so deviation being fine. Process feels very light for me and I’m pretty happy with that.

Re: How big tech runs tech projects and the curious absence of Scrum

#116

Post by brightball »

namdnay wrote: post #109
brightball wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have PTSD from a bastardized version of SAFe, based on your description.

Judging by the number of SAFe consultants (complete with that video of a guy drawing comic-book style diagrams about spotify, cute the first time but infuriating after the 10th) I'd have to say that if our SAFe was bastardised maybe SAFe itself is a bastard

I know many companies running SAFe on the east coast and it’s generally an improvement across the board from everybody I talk to. The only problems I’ve seen are from 2 camps: the people who don’t want to have to plan anything and the people who want everything that is planned to be 100% accurate and not a best guess. Either of these two groups will cause problems to a process like this with the latter usually being in some type of leadership role.

SAFe consultants or not, it’s still up to your company leadership to implement it. A lot of SAFe consultants I have talked to try to advocate for things that follow Scrum because many teams are already familiar with it. This is honestly one of the biggest issues that I have found with the teaching.

80% of SAFe is based on Donald Reniertson’s “2nd Generation Lean Product Development” book, which is fantastic. Once you’ve read that it’s easy to spot the differences.

Re: How big tech runs tech projects and the curious absence of Scrum

#118

Post by Frost1x »

pc86 wrote: post #92
whynotmaybe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also seen some instance where gatekeeper were pretty effective at filtering users demands because some of those requests were too dumb and the "paying" users were used to have everything they wanted, and because they "paid" the dev department, "they had to do everything they wanted". Like asking for a 6months dev work to help them save 1 hour annually on an annoying task they had to do.

> Like asking for a 6months dev work to help them save 1 hour annually on an annoying task they had to do. I see this as a complaint a lot, but... in a private company, they're the ones writing the checks. So if they want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to save an hour, that's their prerogative. It's certainly our obligation to point out the cost (including ongoing maintenance) but again in a private compan…

Yea, I don't see the complaint here. It's part of my job to let whomever the client may be that what they're doing may be a bad use of resources (typically in a documented email in a very positive tone with lots of "decision makers" on the email, also with a nice lead in explanation as to a way it could be efficient under some set of circumstances so they can copy paste that as their "well we weren't sure" pathway forward).

After that, I really really don't care anymore, that's someone else's problem. I've played that soapbox and it's a waste of my time and energy. I make sure responsibility is passed back, documented and proceed. If you want to throw hundreds of thousands or millions at me and whomever to some wasteful request, go for it. You have the option, you've been warned, and I've given you a valid excuse to proceed with high risk, high uncertainty of ROI option with everyone important involved.

I do a lot of contractual/consulting work so even warning can mean early termination of work forward, so I'm taking a risk even informing you (some people actually listen and work stops early during consulting time and development follow up never occurs, these are the smart people and they're bad for my livelihood)--I could just do whatever you ask and get paid. If I were salaried, there's even less risk of me losing income forward by informing so I say in those cases just do your professional due diligence go let people know it's a bad idea without creating political land mines for anyone, then allow them to step on land mines at their own discretion.

Re: How big tech runs tech projects and the curious absence of Scrum

#119

Post by ironmagma »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #21
ironmagma wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can I get anti-Scrum certified?

Refuse to work at places that practice?

No, I want to be able to represent myself as authoritatively as the guy who proclaims to be “scrum certified,” as though scrum is so valuable as to have a certification.

Re: How big tech runs tech projects and the curious absence of Scrum

#120

Post by CraneWorm »

jshmrsn wrote: post #93
akudha wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with any system is that people try to enforce it, military style. In my previous job, we did scrum, but not too strict. We had two week cycles, not-too-strict deadlines (most of the time) etc. If I finished my task early, I was free to pick up tasks from the planned list, without having to get permission from my manager. We also didn't agonize over story points, retrospective etc. We did it light hearted…

We have sprint retros and generally find them valuable. I’m curious how one would even go about incorporating music and movies into a sprint retro? That does sound painful.

I think they mean when your retro board has a theme; I've seen various themes applied successfully i.e. sailboat:https://metroretro.io/templates/the-sailboat-retrospective
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