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Why Scrum is stressing you out

rethinkingsoftware.substack.com

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Re: Why Scrum is stressing you out

#421

Post by pragma_x »

rightbyte wrote: post #403
pragma_x wrote: post #345

When managing a project scrum I stick to a few things that have worked well for me. - Make it clear that the name "sprint" is a bad one. This is marathon. Encourage maintaining a steady pace and do not become a party to burn-out. - Use Agile pointing methodology by the book. - Standups are for communicating wins and blockers; your overall general status is not useful to the rest of the team and makes the standup go l…

> the name "sprint" is a bad one. This is marathon. 'Marathon' is also as bad. It implies running fast to the point of almost puking over an extended period of time for the glory of it. How about 'cycle', or 'trip' if we have to use distance traveled methaphors?

That's a good point. I find myself using "increment" from time to time as it is.

Re: Why Scrum is stressing you out

#422

Post by michaelcampbell »

scott_w wrote: post #371
RussianCow wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intuitively, I think most managers think that tackling everything in one go is somehow easier or less risky.

Speaking as a manager: any managers that think that are wrong.

Sure, but that doesn't mean it's not pervasive.

Re: Why Scrum is stressing you out

#423

Post by pie420 »

socksy wrote: post #392
prepend wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think estimates are wrong but useful and necessary. I don’t think it’s a strawman argument at all. For simple activities you can get by with no estimates but with dependencies estimates become more and more necessary.

I never understood this point of view. It's impossible to predict the future, and it's impossible to predict the complexity of something you've never done before. Given that, estimates can not be useful, other than as a tool for political post hoc justification. I have personally only ever had success with estimates that were "is this a project, or is this a task that belongs to a project". Perhaps stretching to t-sh…

There is very little chance that what you are working on has never been done before. Most likely, you are writing simple code to do simple things. These things can be broken down into simple tasks, and these simple tasks can be estimated.

Unless you are working on ChatGPT-6, i assure you, you can definitely estimate how long things will take. your estimates will not be perfect, but they will be good approximations for guiding development.

Even OpenAI by now probably is pretty good at estimating how long the next ChatGPT version will take to develop, since they've done it 4-5 times already.

Alway always distrust someone who says "we are doing things that have never been done before". At the very bleeding edge (OpenAI, SpaceX), you are iterating on something that has been done many times before, but with a small innovation.

Re: Why Scrum is stressing you out

#424

Post by pie420 »

LeFantome wrote: post #18
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just keep in mind that a lot of people equate Agile with Scrum, which is incorrect. Agile is about exactly what you said: empowering devs to get shit done. None of the extra “keep managers happy” crap that Scrum introduces is in any way covered by the Agile manifesto.

What in Scrum is about keeping managers happy?

they give managers visibility, deliverables, stuff to fill their calendars with, and automates their job into easy, if inefficient daily meetings.

Re: Why Scrum is stressing you out

#425

Post by vannevar »

skydhash wrote: post #247
vannevar wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say they were slacking, but they may be working on the wrong things, or prematurely optimizing things at the expense of other priorities. Ironically, it's the author who suggests implicitly that devs can slack more in waterfall ("Sprints never stop"). Since the client is involved in every sprint, any change of mind they have during the development process (and keep in mind that changes of mind are a virtual…

It’s that culture of fear that I don’t understand: devs working on the wrong thing. More often than not, it usually means: Is the dev spending more time than me (who is not doing the work) is willing to give him? Every professional understands priority and expectations. And communication is all that is required. But PM usually don’t understand the nature of software development and fear of losing control (the bad one…

>Every professional understands priority and expectations. And communication is all that is required.

Sure--the kind of communication that is ensured by a brief daily standup (communication within the team) and a regular progress review with the stakeholders, like say, a sprint review every few weeks (external communication).

While it's true that every professional understands the idea of priority, the global priorities of a project may be very different from the individual priorities of a developer. A diligent, conscientious developer can still get caught up in a narrow problem that doesn't really move the project forward, even after the PM has "made it clear what should be worked on." Fire-and-forget is not a strategy for project success. Continuous communication and regular reviews/resets are a better way.

Re: Why Scrum is stressing you out

#426

Post by prepend »

hinkley wrote: post #395
prepend wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think estimates are wrong but useful and necessary. I don’t think it’s a strawman argument at all. For simple activities you can get by with no estimates but with dependencies estimates become more and more necessary.

You need to break work up into tasks that take less than two weeks. Beyond that, you’re metagaming and that is going to end up either not being worth the energy invested or a net negative. I say energy not time because there are only so many niggling arguments you can have with coworkers before they push you into traffic. Each petty little argument that could have been about something more important just runs down th…

I disagree as when you have a team of 8 people understanding whether something is one day of work or 10 is a big difference.

I don’t think you need precise estimation down to the hour, but knowing if someone can do 4 things in a sprint or just 1 is really important because people have interdependencies.

I don’t think I’ve ever had arguments about estimates and it’s usually a really quick exercise of “I think this is a couple days” and others saying “ok.”

Re: Why Scrum is stressing you out

#427

Post by prepend »

socksy wrote: post #392
prepend wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think estimates are wrong but useful and necessary. I don’t think it’s a strawman argument at all. For simple activities you can get by with no estimates but with dependencies estimates become more and more necessary.

I never understood this point of view. It's impossible to predict the future, and it's impossible to predict the complexity of something you've never done before. Given that, estimates can not be useful, other than as a tool for political post hoc justification. I have personally only ever had success with estimates that were "is this a project, or is this a task that belongs to a project". Perhaps stretching to t-sh…

S/M/L is about as good as it gets. I’ve tried using story points but I think the point isn’t to have exact estimates but to figure out if 1) it’s too big for the spring and if so break it down into smaller; 2) is this someone a single person can do or it takes multiple; 3) can I do a couple of these in a single sprint (M) or it’s the only thing (L) or it’s just “5 minutes” (S and usually a day or two because nothing is 5 minutes).

I’m a fan of Taleb, but also a fan of using good maps. Note that Taleb isn’t advocating no maps at all, just that it’s stupid to use the wrong map just because it exists.

I agree that I’d rather have no estimate than a bad estimate, but it’s not like those are the only two options. I want a good estimate or at least a useful estimate over nothing or bad.

Re: Why Scrum is stressing you out

#428

Post by JohnFen »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #8
AnarchismIsCool wrote: post #3

I've learned to hate software process. If you have team sizes set sanely and empower devs to do what they need to do in order to accomplish the goal, they'll be fine without the management overhead of arbitrarily imposed productivity flow. Agile et al, along with 99% of the features in ticketing systems, exist to make managers feel like they are justifying their paycheck. If you are a manager and this makes you angry…

Just keep in mind that a lot of people equate Agile with Scrum, which is incorrect. Agile is about exactly what you said: empowering devs to get shit done. None of the extra “keep managers happy” crap that Scrum introduces is in any way covered by the Agile manifesto.

> Agile is about exactly what you said: empowering devs to get shit done.

Sure, that's the goal. In reality, though, that's very nearly never what it does in practice. That's why I have come to view "agile" shops with an extremely skeptical eye.

Re: Why Scrum is stressing you out

#429

Post by JohnFen »

bluGill wrote: post #411
stetrain wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. But Kanban also often incorporates some of the processes from Scrum like daily standups that aren't prescribed anywhere in Agile. Personally I find it more useful to organize things around useful product milestones that are actually usable and demo-able. Those might take a week, or three weeks, but probably not two months because that's a long time to go without a demo and getting feedback. Sticking to a rigi…

Agile is not against processes when needed. Agile is against too much process.

And yet, the most process-heavy places I've ever worked at have been "agile" shops.

Re: Why Scrum is stressing you out

#430

Post by JohnFen »

RHSeeger wrote: post #413
Pet_Ant wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stand-up is an opportunity to call out things that are blocking you, not for giving status updates. I got Scrum certified for resume padding, and thought it was gonna be easy, but I was blown away by the things I "knew had to be part of Scrum" that actually weren't. This is all there is to Scrum, if it's not here it's not part of it: https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html It's like calling the electoral college…

> The stand-up is an opportunity to call out things that are blocking you, not for giving status updates. I find it very useful for allowing everyone on the team to have a general idea what everyone else is working on. You can call out to ask for help at any time [1]. But having a 15 minute meeting each day to make sure everyone has a view of all the pieces in movement is handy. [1] Though the standup does give a pla…

> Though the standup does give a place for people that aren't comfortable calling out when they're having issues

In my experience, standups are the worst places for such people. If they aren't comfortable calling out when they're having issues, they're even less comfortable calling out that they're having issues in front of the entire class.

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