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You don't need Scrum, you just need to do Kanban right (2022)

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Re: You don't need Scrum, you just need to do Kanban right (2022)

#291

Post by crazygringo »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #64
irjustin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that because the product manager is gathering requirements from other orgs/users? > I have never seen feedback from estimation to requirements. Perhaps you work with perfect pms! jokes aside, usually all it takes is an estimation of 8 or 13 and something changes real fast.

Yea, they tell you that they don't believe your estimates and stop asking for them before setting the deadline.

Then that's not agile.

The entire point of agile is that a PM can't do that. Large estimates force a PM to go back to stakeholders and revise the desired features to something that engineers have consensus that should be deliverable within the next sprint given their historical velocity.

If you're not doing that, then you're not even in any conversation about agile/scrum.

Re: You don't need Scrum, you just need to do Kanban right (2022)

#292

Post by emodendroket »

ResearchCode wrote: post #147
emodendroket wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Estimation often is way off for construction projects, but would you hire a contractor who refused to hazard a guess of how long a job would take or how much it would cost?

Would you hire a mathematician that doesn't "story point" conjectures? Yes. Would you hire one that does?

I find this analogy harder to understand. What am I hiring the mathematician to do in this example?

Re: You don't need Scrum, you just need to do Kanban right (2022)

#293

Post by emodendroket »

kqr wrote: post #270
emodendroket wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you estimate "value" without any idea what resources are needed or what else you will have to forgo to pursue the project?

Value meaning roughly revenue, not profit.

But estimating revenue is just as much of a shot in the dark as estimating effort, and if the effort is great enough it will cancel out the revenue.

Re: You don't need Scrum, you just need to do Kanban right (2022)

#294

Post by ResearchCode »

theshrike79 wrote: post #210
ResearchCode wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what use a "scrum master" is. That sounds like a small task for the software engineer or their real manager. There is nothing showing that heavy agile actually leads to features being developed earlier. In my experience it's the opposite as you build up heavy tech debt by micro-managing and optimizing for a 2 week return instead of the long term. Waterfall were 1 to 2 year projects with heavy up-front adm…

The task of the Scrum Master is to make themselves redundant. They just make sure the team follows the structure they agreed on + runs interference for external issues. After the team is mature enough, one of them can take the SM duties in addition to other tasks because the actual process runs without extra management.

Sounds like they were redundant from the very beginning. Those sound like small tasks for the engineers or the actual manager.

Re: You don't need Scrum, you just need to do Kanban right (2022)

#295

Post by kahmeal »

vikingerik wrote: post #261
pg_1234 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually the most effective strategy I've seen is Kanban, but with a fixed release deadline. Inevitably there are some essential tickets and some nice-to-have tickets. For the nice-to-haves it's a case of progress or die. Think of it as time constrained Kanban with semi-fixed scope. The dropped tickets may carry over to a later release (if there is one), or just die forever (make it easy to cull bullshit). P.S. From…

That's functionally scrum anyway, you're just not calling it that to avoid the ceremony, yeah.

The ceremony just undoes the efficiency in most cases; That's the rub.

Re: You don't need Scrum, you just need to do Kanban right (2022)

#296

Post by flappyeagle »

emodendroket wrote: post #249
gilbetron wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Constructions remains a terrible analogy for software development, as it always has been.

Would you agree to pay for any service where not even an estimate of the price could be given? I guess healthcare is the only example I can think of where anyone consents to that.

Research. We’re researching cures to cancer, nuclear fusion, space flight, etc. with no idea what the total cost of ownership will be.

Software dev can resemble research on a smaller scale. The more interesting or complex your requirements and environment, the closer it resembles research.

The original point of agile was to lean into this fact and get out of planning and predicting. Scrum culture has corrupted this goal.

Re: You don't need Scrum, you just need to do Kanban right (2022)

#297

Post by icedchai »

hgsgm wrote: post #232
s-lambert wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see retrospectives being that much of a time-sink, it's a 30min/1hr meeting every 2 weeks. Even when I was on a kanban team they still had a fortnightly retrospective, it's useful to have a checkup occasionally.

Every time someone hates Scrum they always complain about 2 week sprints, which are an insane choice (should be 4 weeks), that shows they aren't doing Scrum, they are micromanaging with "Scrum" as the excuse.

I currently work at a place that does 1 week sprints. It's bad.

Re: You don't need Scrum, you just need to do Kanban right (2022)

#300

Post by phendrenad2 »

If you ask different parts of your company if Scrum or Kanban is better, you'll get WILDLY different answers from different parts of the business. The CEO has very different needs and wants than the on-the-ground code monkey. We have to take all of that into account before saying we "don't need" Scrum. Yes, okay, you don't NEED scrum, but maybe it's the best tool for the job, given the collective requirements of the business.

Judging by the perspective shared in this article, I'd say it's coming from a Team Lead / Lead Programmer role at a small company, where Kanban works great. Once you grow beyond a certain size, almost everyone switches to Scrum. Why? Because it reduces friction with other parts of the business, which want - nay - NEED to slice time up into manageable, trackable chunks. And this goes all the way to the CEO and investors. You may not like it, but it's a very real constraint on your choice here.

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