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Scrum's Built-In 'Get Out of Jail Free Card' Against Criticism

mdalmijn.com

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Re: Scrum's Built-In 'Get Out of Jail Free Card' Against Criticism

#31

Post by choult »

kstenerud wrote: post #20

Scrum serves two primary purposes: 1. To force a check in so that everyone keeps the manager up to date. This is annoying for people who already do that as a matter of course, but not everyone is that disciplined. 2. To demonstrate velocity to the higher ups. We can't get away from the fact that upper management needs reassurance that we're not just fucking around. With these bullshit numbers we can make them feel be…

(I promise I know the below is an idealist stance)

I disagree; there's nothing saying the manager has to be there. In a properly run team/project with good ticket discipline, managers should get their status updates from the ticketing system.

Standups, applied properly, are an infra-team communication tool. They're a formal structure to encourage communications, and raise issues early. They're not a replacement for the informal comms that all good teams do, just a check.

Similarly, velocity should only be used by the team - your sprint commit is the output, and the expectation you set for outside stakeholders, and velocity is a tool to help you get better at that expectation setting.

Re: Scrum's Built-In 'Get Out of Jail Free Card' Against Criticism

#32

Post by lupusreal »

itronitron wrote: post #26
torginus wrote: post #21

Imo the fundamental failure of Scrum as a planning methodology stems from the fact that it gives user requirements ('user stories') to developers and expects them to translate them to a technical implementation almost as an afterthought that's barely acknowledged in the framework. Most of us work on huge codebases with tons of baggage and hundreds or thousands of engineer-years invested into it. Implementing a featur…

>> a well-thought out implementation can save tons of time I think there is a bias for many developers to feel like they are not doing anything unless their actively producing/editing code. Once I realized that I could just state in a standup that I was 'investigating' and 'researching' the best approach to XYZ then I felt a lot less resistance to the process.

Almost all standups I've been in have abused the "investigating loophole" egregiously. There is only investigation and completion.

Day 1 through N: "I'm investigating X"

Day N+1: "I checked in X and am now investigating Y"

Re: Scrum's Built-In 'Get Out of Jail Free Card' Against Criticism

#33

Post by sambazi »

madspindel wrote: post #17

When I hear and read about Scrum, I'm always reminded about the Simple Sabotage Field Manual by the CIA. How can we be sure that Scrum isn't yet another tool by a foreign adversary to sabotage Western companies?

the same way we can be, reasonable, sure that other tools, like knifes and saws, when used for their intended tasks and in the intended way, are just tools.

Re: Scrum's Built-In 'Get Out of Jail Free Card' Against Criticism

#34

Post by lupusreal »

MarkMarine wrote: post #9
max_sendfeld wrote: post #3

Same logic with communism - all the ones that ended in oppressive dictatorships, mass executions or starvation weren't "real communism" or weren't "implemented right"...

Oy. Why add politics to this. Maybe just stay on topic.

Scrum is an ideology, and is a method of managing people to boot. It is politics.

Re: Scrum's Built-In 'Get Out of Jail Free Card' Against Criticism

#35

Post by mjfisher »

I'm surprised no one yet - either in the comments or the article - has talked about the most important and powerful part of Scrum: having a singular sprint goal aligned with a higher level product goal that the entire team is dedicated to.

That it's also the most difficult or commonly ignored part of Scrum might also be relevant.

Re: Scrum's Built-In 'Get Out of Jail Free Card' Against Criticism

#36

Post by DixieDev »

Freak_NL wrote: post #14

I'm sure this happens because my senses haven't been dulled down enough to just shrug and gloss over these, but the AI-generated filler image after the first full paragraph just jars me out of the reading groove and makes me just drop the article. It feels derisive. How is this better than just grabbing a photo of an actual get out of jail free -card from somewhere? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Get_Out_of_…

Your comment is far too reasonable. Go directly to jail. Do not pass ⅄OR.

Re: Scrum's Built-In 'Get Out of Jail Free Card' Against Criticism

#38

Post by ebiester »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #2

What evidence would it take to conclude Scrum didn't work?

I think this is the wrong question. The question instead is “for what context, what other solution works better?”

That could be SAFe, or DAD, or 37 signals’ Shape Up.

“Scrum doesn’t work” is like saying Systemd doesn’t work. Obviously it works in some contexts. Obviously it has weaknesses. But in comparison to what?

Re: Scrum's Built-In 'Get Out of Jail Free Card' Against Criticism

#40

Post by torginus »

itronitron wrote: post #26
torginus wrote: post #21

Imo the fundamental failure of Scrum as a planning methodology stems from the fact that it gives user requirements ('user stories') to developers and expects them to translate them to a technical implementation almost as an afterthought that's barely acknowledged in the framework. Most of us work on huge codebases with tons of baggage and hundreds or thousands of engineer-years invested into it. Implementing a featur…

>> a well-thought out implementation can save tons of time I think there is a bias for many developers to feel like they are not doing anything unless their actively producing/editing code. Once I realized that I could just state in a standup that I was 'investigating' and 'researching' the best approach to XYZ then I felt a lot less resistance to the process.

You can tell that, but if you are 'researching' during the implementation phase, how the hell did you give an estimate on the task? I'm not blaming you, I'm just pointing out Scrum is ridiculous
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