Ditching Scrum for Kanban - The best decision we’ve made as a team • Hacker News Board

Re: Ditching Scrum for Kanban - The best decision we’ve made as a team

#101

Post by douche » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 8:37 PM UTC

cscharenberg wrote: post #89

seanwilson wrote: post #9

> The rituals, mainly the standups and grooming sessions, were fantastic. Standups are a great way to keep everyone aligned on the work. Can anyone elaborate why they find standups useful? The planning board should already communicate what's being done, what's been done and why people are blocked. I only find them helpful if some people in the team generally don't communicate well what they're up to (e.g. during dail…

The value is in creating a summary, to collect all the stream of conscience updates into a coherent statement about status and next steps. A daily standup of summaries removes the burden of mentally remembering yesterday's minutiae to reconstruct the current state. I mean, if you want to know the status of a system do you go to the dashboard or do you go review every system event for the past few hours? I hope not th…

Having seen some of how the sausage of dashboards get made, you go look at the real data, not the fancy crap that is thrown on the dashboard to sell the product in demos...

Re: Ditching Scrum for Kanban - The best decision we’ve made as a team

#102

Post by rabbitheart » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 9:51 PM UTC

tablet wrote: post #60

rabbitheart wrote: post #20

The team I was previously on tried to use Scrum and seemed to naturally fall into a similar model to Kanban; we got rid of what helped, and stopped doing what didn't. It was an amazing relief, especially since Scrum sprints and the numbers just weren't working. Sadly, our Scrumlessness was found out and it was implemented again shortly before I left. Morale was dropping steadily on the team already (unrelated reasons…

It is really stupid to NOT allow any team choose its own process. Your scrum leader is not a wise person, to put it lightly.

I think the most frustrating part was that I explained we had tried Scrum and adapted it for our team's needs. We weren't anti-Scrum, we just found a way to make it work for us. I was then told "[Company] is a Scrum company. We all use Scrum as it is" and was brushed off. Same Scrum leader would yell at the operations team for failing to complete sprints in time when servers fell over, and other nastiness that becomes the priority when you work in a position where you prioritize server health and function over new builds and features.

The other Scrum leader we had was pretty great, but, unfortunately, was not the one assigned to my team.

Sorry if this borders on ranting. I really enjoyed working for that company, but it was a rough time toward the end of duration there. Apparently I have lingering frustrations, especially since I'm still friendly with many on the ops team. :)

Re: Ditching Scrum for Kanban - The best decision we’ve made as a team

#103

Post by BurningFrog » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 9:56 PM UTC

Udik wrote: post #97

BurningFrog wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should not turn into long discussions, but if standup is for mentioning what you're stuck on, it seems really strange that others are forbidden from mentioning how to get unstuck. I'm used to pair programming and communicating all through the day. This is incompatible with the surly loner programmers you describe in the last paragraph.

Are you blocking a whole bored and standing team to get help from a workmate on an issue that is relevant to you only? I hope not. I think the Agile orthodoxy prescribes that any conversation that lasts more than a few tens of seconds should be saved for after the standup. And it makes sense. However, if you were stuck on something, then you've probably been for some time before the standup. So I guess you had plenty…

Yeah, a few tens of seconds is all I'm talking about too. We may differ mostly in terminology.

Typically when someone says "we're a little stuck on how to do X" someone else chimes in with how to do it. No big (or small) list of questions to discuss.

If the meeting is done right, the team is not bored, and what's discussed is interesting to the whole team, since we collectively own the code base.

I've definitely met those loner programmers. I might even have been a little like that a long time ago. They can do great work, but need to be kept out of my agile teams.

The way to get people to talk about the work is to pair program. I'm not interested in working solo programming.

Re: Ditching Scrum for Kanban - The best decision we’ve made as a team

#104

Post by vpeters25 » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 9:57 PM UTC

Udik wrote: post #84

vpeters25 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the standup meeting is there because it follows the first principle of the Agile Manifesto: "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools"

I thought that the scrum meeting is a process. The whole Agile thing is a strictly defined process. That needs a lot of specific tools too.

Correct, Agile is a development process. As for needing tools, at least scrum doesn't need anything more than pen and paper to generate its artifacts: 2 lists (backlogs) and a chart (burndown).

Re: Ditching Scrum for Kanban - The best decision we’ve made as a team

#105

Post by sbuk » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 10:07 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #93

sbuk wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate?

In physical production (where it comes from), kanban is a lean method for ensuring that you don't spend on producing right now something that is not needed right now. It works by tokens that "pull" the production from other productive unities that are ultimately "pulled" from external (client) demand. The article talks about all kinds of rituals and gains, but never once touches that "pulling" activity that is centra…

Thanks. I'll confess to being a Kanban noob. Do you have any resources that you can share? Looking with Google seems to present more of this sort of article.

Re: Ditching Scrum for Kanban - The best decision we’ve made as a team

#106

Post by devhead » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 10:31 PM UTC

metamet wrote: post #50

manigandham wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually it's the managers who find it helpful - for them. Getting verbal confirmation from everyone of what's on the board.

Which can be incredibly important if the manager has to report to someone as well.

... and can't find the ticket that has that info

Re: Ditching Scrum for Kanban - The best decision we’ve made as a team

#107

Post by marcosdumay » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 10:32 PM UTC

sbuk wrote: post #105

marcosdumay wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In physical production (where it comes from), kanban is a lean method for ensuring that you don't spend on producing right now something that is not needed right now. It works by tokens that "pull" the production from other productive unities that are ultimately "pulled" from external (client) demand. The article talks about all kinds of rituals and gains, but never once touches that "pulling" activity that is centra…

Thanks. I'll confess to being a Kanban noob. Do you have any resources that you can share? Looking with Google seems to present more of this sort of article.

Wikipedia has a surprisingly good explanation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban

There's a link to Toyota's site at the bottom, as the inventors, they have plenty of authority on it.

Wikipedia has also an article about Kanban in software development. As expected, the introduction does not even make sense, but the methodology section contains a form of continuous improvement, what could work. Also, I could not understand how any of the experiences related on the article could come from the Wiki's methodology - it has probably no relation at all with was implemented at the author's place.

Re: Ditching Scrum for Kanban - The best decision we’ve made as a team

#108

Post by spinningarrow » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 1:41 AM UTC

Udik wrote: post #78

BurningFrog wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing is you can have a conversation about things and ask questions about what you're stuck on. It's also much faster and more fun than writing some mini-report on a planning board people may or may not read. But the most important thing is that it is quick and encapsulated. Only about things the whole teams need to know. You need to be happy with reporting that nothing interesting for the whole team happened.

No, at the standup you shouldn't have conversations about things. You should just do a quick recap of what you've been doing and what you'll work on. It's a standup because it's meant to be very quick. On the other hand, if you need a standup to ask questions about stuff you're stuck on, then your work environment has serious issues. It might be 24 hours until the next standup. You need to have colleagues who are ava…

I find that many of the colleagues who spend the day with earphones on are regularly available on chat. Isn't that a much better way to communicate rather than assume your problem is the most important and worth disrupting other people from their work?

Re: Ditching Scrum for Kanban - The best decision we’ve made as a team

#109

Post by mpdehaan2 » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 2:15 AM UTC

arielweisberg wrote: post #33

It sounds like you got a lot of positive things out of it. Which is great. Also great that you are iterating and not sticking to what the coach gave you. My take on what made many elements of SCRUM work for me follows. 2-3 hour backlog grooming sessions is a warning sign. Of what I couldn't say but maybe it is time to evaluate team size or how meetings are being conducted. Push as much stuff out of meetings as possib…

That long grooming session IS a warning sign. I recall working for one disaster where we were required to have one grooming session for us (1 hour) and then it got re-groomed the same week where we heard all the tickets again.

It should be sufficient for someone to lead and assign tickets as they come in, and for people to talk to people and reassign them as needed.

Again, if you need status on something, don't have a 2-3 hour long meeting, just ask... because when you have a long meeting and only 2 people out of, say, 8, are engaged at the same time, those other people are being very expensive and are getting bored fast.

The team's velocity is what it is - retrospectives can be boiled down to a "hey, how are things working out" that you can fit into a standard team meeting IMHO. Doesn't need it's own time slot, and this can also prevent retros turning into "throw X under the bus / CYA" type meetings. You can also get a lot of this from 1:1 conversations, and probably in greater depth in that context.

Re: Ditching Scrum for Kanban - The best decision we’ve made as a team

#110

Post by michaelbuddy » Thu, Jan 07, 2016, 6:08 AM UTC

seanwilson wrote: post #9

> The rituals, mainly the standups and grooming sessions, were fantastic. Standups are a great way to keep everyone aligned on the work. Can anyone elaborate why they find standups useful? The planning board should already communicate what's being done, what's been done and why people are blocked. I only find them helpful if some people in the team generally don't communicate well what they're up to (e.g. during dail…

You want people to elaborate on the concept that standups "keep people aligned on the work"

Like you want a bunch of examples? How do you have some much patience for that if a standup interrupts your work?

Maybe you have them at the wrong time. We have one at 9:30 and it works. People who arrive early are pretty much cranking and the standup is a break from that. People who arrive later (me) show up and it's the first thing of the day goes with a cup of coffee or tea.

Any breakouts can happen right after, have those discussions at somebody's desk while you're already interrupted and THEN jump into the long stretch till lunch. I don't really see the interruption there.

Even if I get bored and dont' know what people are talking about some of the time, I'd say it'd be pretty selfish of me to claim that they are a waste of time. And it would also be stupid of me to think that something sent in an email or commmented on slack or lync is enough. I mean if you could send a message and everyone got it the first time, I think there wouldn't be a concept of marketing or advertising in the world. Sometimes people need to hear things twice.

I guess I'm just not big on keeping work in a black box. And I think it's comical and sad that we go to jobs and stare at screens all day. face to face interaction and having to express yourself to a group for a measly 30 seconds a day is a positive. It might even force a few of us to consider our appearance too. And frankly, I think I'm paid to answer questions and be available to people as needed, so a standup is meant to be an efficient way to do that and it's supposed to encourage brevity. If it's not, start communicating push it in that direction.