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Scrum seems to be mostly about having better alibis

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Re: Scrum seems to be mostly about having better alibis

#21

Post by quanticle »

Like committing to a sprint target. And literally doing everything to fulfill it. Like not waiting for a manager to step in and ask for overtime and weekend shifts. Remember? Scrum teams take all the necessary steps themselves. Always!

Isn't the entire point of scrum to enforce a sustainable pace of development? One that doesn't require heroics like having programmers come in on nights and weekends to finish? The entire point of tracking time and making burndown charts is so that you can avoid taking on too much work. If your team doesn't have the ability to push back on the requirements and say, "Hey, this is too much, we need to push features X, Y, and Z into the next sprint," you're not really doing scrum. You're doing kabuki-scrum, which is usually just waterfall with all the meetings relabeled.

Re: Scrum seems to be mostly about having better alibis

#22

Post by ditonal »

drisco wrote: post #20

My experience with scrum is that it is degrading to developers - it tries to turn developers into interchangeable cogs in the machine, filled with micromanagement (aka 'daily standups') and puts to much decision making power into the hands of the 'Product Owners'. I'm a grown up, i can make my own decisions, i can talk to clients (in fact, i want to - no that, is not a distraction), and I don't need anyone looking ov…

The author challenged your perspective and you provided no rebuttal. Neither side has any evidence, but in my anecdotal experience I agree with you. I've worked in pretty much every type of tech organization imaginable and the ones that trusted developers across the development spectrum fared best. The ones that had managers handle priorities and wanted heads down coders to implement fared worse, by far. There is an incredible amount of craftsmanship in software, and often times developers are the best product managers because a passion for product is what led them to learn to develop in the first place. Cutting them out of everything but the coding is a mistake, except for a smaller subset of coders who do prefer a heads down role. You can find good spots for them on the right team, but if you don't you end up with a lot of well written code that solves the wrong problem.

Re: Scrum seems to be mostly about having better alibis

#23

Post by RalfR »

qooleot wrote: post #16
qooleot wrote: post #6

"Your Product Owner is more like a Shadow Product Onwer" Typo with 'Onwer'?

Hey curious about downvote (honestly, want to know why). I didn't see anything saying that was a bad idea in the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html I felt the typo was one where I had to do a double-take and make sure it wasn't some purposeful acronym. So, I posted a quick note since it looked like the HN poster also was the article writer, and my comment would drift to the bottom quickly…

Corrected the typo. Thanks for pointing it out!

Re: Scrum seems to be mostly about having better alibis

#24

Post by matthewmacleod »

I actually started writing a point-by-point response to this, but it mutated into a thousand words and will be better suited to a blog post at some point in the future.

In the meantime, I think these are generally the same shallow straw-man arguments against Scrum that we all see pretty frequently. I guess the key points to bear in mind will be:

- Scrum is not a be-all and end-all solution to all product development. If you are developing a product for a slow-moving third-party (a case which is described as one of Scrum's downfalls) then you are correct – it's probably a bad choice. So is any agile approach. That is totally fine, and I'm not sure why it's seen as a bad thing.

- Scrum is not a fully-described, cast-iron set of rules that have to be followed. It's a framework which can (and must!) be changed to suit the team, and the product that's being developed. Concerns like wider-scale management and integration of multiple projects are so dependent on the functioning of an individual organisation that it would be ineffective to have a prescriptive set of rules. Your 'Agile Coach', product owners and management team generally have to deal with these issues in other ways.

- Scrum is (apparently, based on the objections in this article) implemented poorly in many places. For example, the 'seemingly endless series of meetings'? That's explicitly one of the things that Scrum does not encourage! Micromanagement is the same. Scope change during a sprint as well. That Scrum is poorly implemented is not a reasonable criticism of it, for me.

- It's okay to fail to meet targets when delivering software, and inevitable that it will happen. Scrum provides the tools to manage and recover from those failures, and to help ensure they are limited in scope. Those retrospectives, for example – it's totally valid to say 'We committed to feature , and failed to deliver it because prevented us from doing so'. The important thing is to understand what caused that failure, and how similar failures can be prevented in the future. That's a fantastically powerful tool to have.

Perhaps I'm just biased, because I've been working in excellently-managed agile teams that have been delivering software very effectively, and have seen how useful Scrum has been as a framework to manage the complexity of planning it.

Re: Scrum seems to be mostly about having better alibis

#25

Post by RalfR »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #24

I actually started writing a point-by-point response to this, but it mutated into a thousand words and will be better suited to a blog post at some point in the future. In the meantime, I think these are generally the same shallow straw-man arguments against Scrum that we all see pretty frequently. I guess the key points to bear in mind will be: - Scrum is not a be-all and end-all solution to all product development.…

I value your opinion, even if I do not agree with it. The argument of "Scrum being poorly implemented" is brought again and again.

It's just another one of these go-to killer arguments.

If Scrum is so mega simple, why do we see endless cases of it failing to being implemented correctly?

Maybe we should start thinking of a framework, that people can actually implement and make successful, without requiring an entire army of coaches and consultants, who make a ton of money from it.

I'd love if you'd continue the discussion over at Agile Overflow.

Re: Scrum seems to be mostly about having better alibis

#26

Post by einrealist »

drisco wrote: post #20

My experience with scrum is that it is degrading to developers - it tries to turn developers into interchangeable cogs in the machine, filled with micromanagement (aka 'daily standups') and puts to much decision making power into the hands of the 'Product Owners'. I'm a grown up, i can make my own decisions, i can talk to clients (in fact, i want to - no that, is not a distraction), and I don't need anyone looking ov…

If you feel degraded by the version of Scrum your team is doing, then the team is doing it wrong or at least the retrospectives are not working. And if you want to make your own decisions, then you are probably better off alone. But that is not the fault of Scrum.

Re: Scrum seems to be mostly about having better alibis

#27

Post by RalfR »

quanticle wrote: post #21

Like committing to a sprint target. And literally doing everything to fulfill it. Like not waiting for a manager to step in and ask for overtime and weekend shifts. Remember? Scrum teams take all the necessary steps themselves. Always! Isn't the entire point of scrum to enforce a sustainable pace of development? One that doesn't require heroics like having programmers come in on nights and weekends to finish? The ent…

Well, as far as I understood, Scrum's fundamental principle dictates that the team delivers working software at the end of every Sprint.

This has partially to do with not over committing at the beginning, but if the team fails to judge correctly, it has to do what needs to be done to fulfil its promises.

Unfortunately, this clear obligation gets forgotten to often – as I pointed out in the original post.

You seem to second my point.

Re: Scrum seems to be mostly about having better alibis

#28

Post by kryptiskt »

br3w5 wrote: post #4

I think the OP's mindset is flawed and perhaps had some bad experiences/coaches with Scrum and possibly only one go at it? I'm not sure why anyone would say "Scrum doesn't want to solve this". When I've worked with teams new to Scrum and the question "how does this fit into Scrum?" comes up, I'll discuss with the team and we come to a pragmatic agreement that is right for the situation and context. Similar to TDD, I…

Waterfall is a 45 year old strawman, born to be a whipping boy: http://jayacarl.blogspot.se/2009/01/waterfall-model-not-what...

I don't know why we are obsessed with that bogey man. While there are some places that use waterfall, sometimes with good reason (things where the spec is critical), the most common state of unenlightened software engineering certainly isn't to have big design up front. It's to have design on a napkin and lousy communication with stakeholders, more wild west than waterfall.

Re: Scrum seems to be mostly about having better alibis

#29

Post by einrealist »

RalfR wrote: post #25
matthewmacleod wrote: post #24

I actually started writing a point-by-point response to this, but it mutated into a thousand words and will be better suited to a blog post at some point in the future. In the meantime, I think these are generally the same shallow straw-man arguments against Scrum that we all see pretty frequently. I guess the key points to bear in mind will be: - Scrum is not a be-all and end-all solution to all product development.…

I value your opinion, even if I do not agree with it. The argument of "Scrum being poorly implemented" is brought again and again. It's just another one of these go-to killer arguments. If Scrum is so mega simple, why do we see endless cases of it failing to being implemented correctly? Maybe we should start thinking of a framework, that people can actually implement and make successful, without requiring an entire a…

We fail because it is about people interacting with each other. We fail, because we were trained to work on our own and competitively. We fail, because we have trouble to change our mindset and have even more trouble to change the minds of others. This is why we will fail at alternatives to Scrum, too.

Scrum requires a different mindset. It requires us to work in a team with honesty and jointly in order to be successful.

Teams fail at Scrum because they are dysfunctional from the start, don't share the same mindset about their work and processes or don't embrace the ideas Scrum provides.

Re: Scrum seems to be mostly about having better alibis

#30

Post by RalfR »

einrealist wrote: post #26
drisco wrote: post #20

My experience with scrum is that it is degrading to developers - it tries to turn developers into interchangeable cogs in the machine, filled with micromanagement (aka 'daily standups') and puts to much decision making power into the hands of the 'Product Owners'. I'm a grown up, i can make my own decisions, i can talk to clients (in fact, i want to - no that, is not a distraction), and I don't need anyone looking ov…

If you feel degraded by the version of Scrum your team is doing, then the team is doing it wrong or at least the retrospectives are not working. And if you want to make your own decisions, then you are probably better off alone. But that is not the fault of Scrum.

If almost everybody "is doing Scrum wrong", is it maybe because of its fundamentally bad design?
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