Does scrum ruin great engineers or are you doing it wrong? • Hacker News Board

Re: Does scrum ruin great engineers or are you doing it wrong?

#21

Post by PaulKeeble » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:19 AM UTC

In the one place I saw Scrum work really well it wasn't because of scrum we succeeded it was the amazingly talent team that groked their goals and understand how to build software well. The complete lack of an enforcer manager was a huge win, being connected directly into your customers and letting them drive what they needed and balancing it with the engineering, that worked really well. They executed well despite scrum and ultimately used Kanban with on need for the biweekly meetings since they were releasing many times a week.

Scrum was a small part of a package of process, the important bit that made that possible was the engineering processes not the task management ones. The business needed to work out what matter most to it and the developers certainly helped more as their expertise in the subject matter grew but what made it all slick was the automation and engineering. Engineering is where the time goes on a software project and doing that well is what matters. As an industry we focus so much on something that is a few hours of effort a week on planning and tracking and yet the big time goes into the actual work. If you spend a lot of time doing planning and tracking and not producing software you are doing it wrong regardless of whatever process you say you are using. Scrum is not remotely sufficient, it ignores all the important bits.

Re: Does scrum ruin great engineers or are you doing it wrong?

#22

Post by donw » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:20 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #18

Very productive individuals that don’t work as a team I refuse to have those people on my team. One person who's twice as productive as everyone else sounds great, but if that person's work doesn't fit well and makes everyone else's work harder it always been a net loss in my experience. I'd prefer my team works well together than have some "brilliant loner" join it.

Agreed.

What happens when the genius leaves? Can other people extend or maintain their work? Is there a lasting benefit to the organization? Does their work enhance the capabilities of other contributors?

From my experience in working with "very productive individuals that don’t work as a team", the answer to these questions is "no".

The reality is that a large chunk of generating economic value stems from being able to get along with other people.

The richest blacksmith in the Old West wasn't the one that was the most brilliant artisan. They were the one that knew the value of a customer, how to cultivate a long-term relationship with one, and how to get more.

Re: Does scrum ruin great engineers or are you doing it wrong?

#23

Post by fjfaase » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:20 AM UTC

Great article, but it does not mention management attitude. If upper management does not have the right attitude towards Scrum, Scrum will fail. If upper management does not guard the role of the Scrum masters, select capable Scrum master and allow them to function correctly, Scrum will crumble into another tool for micro-management which frustrates developers and destroys productivity. I also have seen that often it are the more ambitions (and less technically talented) developers that opt for role of Scrum master as a stepping stone to a management role. These type of Scrum masters will starting act like top-down managers, who no longer fulfill the role of a Scrum master, namely provide a safe environment for the team to function optimally.

Re: Does scrum ruin great engineers or are you doing it wrong?

#24

Post by dbt00 » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:21 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #18

Very productive individuals that don’t work as a team I refuse to have those people on my team. One person who's twice as productive as everyone else sounds great, but if that person's work doesn't fit well and makes everyone else's work harder it always been a net loss in my experience. I'd prefer my team works well together than have some "brilliant loner" join it.

This can flow both ways. I've had great engineers on my team that people were scared to approach because most of those conversations resulted in the questioner discovering they were wrong about something or missing some knowledge. Ideally people who are afraid of that are coached up to be happy to learn instead.

That only works if the great engineer is also excited to learn and help. If they call people stupid or fail to listen to all the details because they prejudge the situation, then they're more of the "brilliant jerk" archetype -- but they often aren't as brilliant as they think they are.

Re: Does scrum ruin great engineers or are you doing it wrong?

#25

Post by donw » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:22 AM UTC

The problem with Scrum is that most practitioners have no idea why their tools exist in the first place, under what conditions those tools apply, and what to do when their tools fail.

Nearly every -- but not all! -- "Agile" environment I have worked in was pure cargo cult, with none of the requisite cultural infrastructure required to actually make any of it work, and often with a very strong centralization of control that made local iteration... unpossible[1].

Or they do the opposite, and go full "Lord of the Flies", providing no structure at all.

Both approaches yield poor results. You want to provide structure, but then grant autonomy over that structure to those beholden to its results.

If you want to "be Agile", your organization needs to push a great deal of control and trust fairly far down in the corporate hierarchy. Doing this successfully requires that organizations build the structures required for both appropriate oversight and cultural promulgation, and few companies even recognize the need for this, much less have the tools to do so.

[1] I am hereby defining this as "Possible on paper, but not in reality".

Re: Does scrum ruin great engineers or are you doing it wrong?

#26

Post by watwut » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:22 AM UTC

waschl wrote: post #8

I am in a big project which assembles 45 teams and all of them shall adopt Scrum (for various reasons). My observation is that all those teams which have a sustainable pace with regards to architecture, technology, quality, output, social behavior, etc have done so while adopting and embracing Scrum in a clean way since the beginning of their existence as a team. All teams severely struggling with their content of wo…

My experience with scrum was that it makes issues around bad team dynamic, pressures and weird contracts worst. Basically, it makes it impossible for individual to react to them and defend against worst consequences.

When it is good, scrum powerlesness does not matter, maybe. But when it goes bad, it does.

Re: Does scrum ruin great engineers or are you doing it wrong?

#27

Post by watwut » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:26 AM UTC

waschl wrote: post #15

dboat wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain what you mean by the real purpose and idea behind scrum?

Let me try: I think it’s about reflection and continuous improvement and providing a framework to enforce those. Scrum-haters in our group are also notorious for an attitude of negativity and resignation in many matters, while Scrum-friends want to improve all the time and find ways to do so, beyond what is obvious.

I think that Scrum leads to resignation for many people, because it takes away control out of individual and insists on everything being collective. So your personal options to improve or make decision becomes severely limited.

Some people like it, because it allowed them to push themselves on the rest of the team. But people who dont thrive in such constant dominance conflict end up resentful and helpless.

Re: Does scrum ruin great engineers or are you doing it wrong?

#28

Post by waschl » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:28 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #26

waschl wrote: post #8

I am in a big project which assembles 45 teams and all of them shall adopt Scrum (for various reasons). My observation is that all those teams which have a sustainable pace with regards to architecture, technology, quality, output, social behavior, etc have done so while adopting and embracing Scrum in a clean way since the beginning of their existence as a team. All teams severely struggling with their content of wo…

My experience with scrum was that it makes issues around bad team dynamic, pressures and weird contracts worst. Basically, it makes it impossible for individual to react to them and defend against worst consequences. When it is good, scrum powerlesness does not matter, maybe. But when it goes bad, it does.

I would agree that Scrum makes bad dynamics more transparent, yes. I would not agree that it generally makes bad dynamics significantly worse. This may happen and it’s certainly often claimed, but that is not what I can confirm from my experience.

Re: Does scrum ruin great engineers or are you doing it wrong?

#29

Post by alexashka » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:30 AM UTC

The only right way to do 'great engineering' is by not having any middle management.

The only right way to do great engineering, is by first asking what we ought to be engineering, not re-implementing the same shit over and over again, like we do web frameworks in every new language.

Great engineering is completely unrelated to scrum. It is only in the delusional mind of a middle manager that his existence and thoughts are at all relevant to the success or failure of any project on this planet.

Re: Does scrum ruin great engineers or are you doing it wrong?

#30

Post by eecc » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:31 AM UTC

waschl wrote: post #15

dboat wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain what you mean by the real purpose and idea behind scrum?

Let me try: I think it’s about reflection and continuous improvement and providing a framework to enforce those. Scrum-haters in our group are also notorious for an attitude of negativity and resignation in many matters, while Scrum-friends want to improve all the time and find ways to do so, beyond what is obvious.

In fact there’s no point in being “agile” in an organization that has no appetite for change (unless those are topdown, consultant-driven, marching orders).

When you’re given the false hope optimization is possible, only to bump into 2-3 layers of middle management and just as many half-broken, Confluence spaces about the “one way of work” for the org... you just content yourself with features and tune out.