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Mind the Burndown, Comrade – Scrum Propaganda Posters

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Re: Mind the Burndown, Comrade – Scrum Propaganda Posters

#31

Post by trhway »

mempko wrote: post #25
tirrellp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scrum focuses on "systemwide" optimization where the "system" is the development of an increment of a software product from concept to completion. Letting a good developer "rocket ahead" optimizes for that developer (localized optimization) but not for the complete system (global optimization). A more "global" optimization of that developer's time and energy, since they can do twice the work in half the time, is to m…

Scrum requires that all team members are already competent and fast. Don't let this consulting company fool you.

>"Scrum requires that ..."

Interesting trait of scrum - whenever there is scrum related discussion the no true Scotsman fallacies immediately pop up. By the way, scrum is actually a methodology to get something out of non-delivering teams. For everybody else it is just like throwing sand into their engine's cylinders.

Re: Mind the Burndown, Comrade – Scrum Propaganda Posters

#32

Post by faragon »

mempko wrote: post #26
faragon wrote: post #18

Agile methodology reminds me Asimov's "Reason" (short story), in this case, poor management methods masking the whip behind a ridiculous religion/faith plus some "gamification".

Scrum comes before "Agile" was invented. Scrum has more connections with lean. But scrum is agile too.

s/Agile/Scrum/g

Re: Mind the Burndown, Comrade – Scrum Propaganda Posters

#33

Post by ajsharma »

kylequest wrote: post #9
eterm wrote: post #4

I can't tell if these are mocking or not? (Even down to capitalisation of SCRUM). Personally I think agile is best thought of as a broad church of methodologies rather than anything concrete to adhere to, and especially I think the sprint approach isn't always suited to business needs. But a generally agile approach I think is good, and I think daily stand-up meetings are good for communication even without sprints o…

It's a pretty big fail when people wait until the daily stand-up to communicate. It's better than not communicating at all, of course :-) Either way, daily stand-ups are the worst thing about scrum especially when they are hijacked by PMs. I'm yet to meet a develop who'd look forward to stand-ups. I know they exist somewhere :-) If you are curious about what other people (you don't talk to a lot) are working on then…

How are you using Hubot to do this? Are you using a particular plugin?

Re: Mind the Burndown, Comrade – Scrum Propaganda Posters

#34

Post by mempko »

faragon wrote: post #32
mempko wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scrum comes before "Agile" was invented. Scrum has more connections with lean. But scrum is agile too.

s/Agile/Scrum/g

Agile manifesto was published in 2001? Notices I am using a capital A here.

Re: Mind the Burndown, Comrade – Scrum Propaganda Posters

#35

Post by derriz »

faragon wrote: post #18

Agile methodology reminds me Asimov's "Reason" (short story), in this case, poor management methods masking the whip behind a ridiculous religion/faith plus some "gamification".

The whole agile/scrum "movement" should be simply amusing and provide endless inspiration for humor and satire. Unfortunately it has gathered enough wide-eyed zealous adherents that it has become scary. Religion/faith indeed; a smug disinterest in empiricism, a rejection of decades of scientific research into complex project management and delight in juvenile revolutionary imagery.

Re: Mind the Burndown, Comrade – Scrum Propaganda Posters

#36

Post by dragonwriter »

mempko wrote: post #26
faragon wrote: post #18

Agile methodology reminds me Asimov's "Reason" (short story), in this case, poor management methods masking the whip behind a ridiculous religion/faith plus some "gamification".

Scrum comes before "Agile" was invented. Scrum has more connections with lean. But scrum is agile too.

Scrum is neither agile nor lean, though its possible for an organization following agile or lean principles to adopt Scrum (as a starting point.)

If you are using a externally-defined methodology rather than driving your methodology based on continuous objective review of what works and does not work for your organization, you are neither agile nor lean, just cargo culting.

Re: Mind the Burndown, Comrade – Scrum Propaganda Posters

#37

Post by dragonwriter »

marktangotango wrote: post #3
Spearchucker wrote: post #2

I'm pretty ambivalent about it, because after 25 years of seeing methodologies come and go and come again with the same ideas wrapped in different names I believe projects that succeed, succeed in spite of the chosen methodology, rather than because of it. https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Entry.aspx?id=99bb5987-e08d-4e8...

From my experience I've found that scrumm holds back good, fast developers because they focus on only doing their share in a sprint, when they could rocket ahead and be pounding on the backlog. How can you keep your best developers motivated and busy in an agile/scrumm environment?

That's a general problem of cyclic development approaches instead of flow-based (kanban, etc.) approaches.

OTOH, depending on other aspects of the context, there may be organizational efficiencies from cyclic approaches that flow-based approaches don't realize.

Re: Mind the Burndown, Comrade – Scrum Propaganda Posters

#38

Post by tirrellp »

marktangotango wrote: post #17
tirrellp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scrum focuses on "systemwide" optimization where the "system" is the development of an increment of a software product from concept to completion. Letting a good developer "rocket ahead" optimizes for that developer (localized optimization) but not for the complete system (global optimization). A more "global" optimization of that developer's time and energy, since they can do twice the work in half the time, is to m…

This makes perfect sense to me given the constraints of working in a mandated scrum environment, thanks. Not sure why you're being downvoted?

Thats how it goes I guess *shrug

Re: Mind the Burndown, Comrade – Scrum Propaganda Posters

#39

Post by tirrellp »

trhway wrote: post #31
mempko wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scrum requires that all team members are already competent and fast. Don't let this consulting company fool you.

>"Scrum requires that ..." Interesting trait of scrum - whenever there is scrum related discussion the no true Scotsman fallacies immediately pop up. By the way, scrum is actually a methodology to get something out of non-delivering teams. For everybody else it is just like throwing sand into their engine's cylinders.

I would agree with that. When a company brings me in, the first question I ask is "What is the problem you are trying to solve?"

Most of the problems that management think are because of the team are mostly (80%+) caused by people/processes/habits/cultural issues UPSTREAM of the team.

In other words, shit rolls down hill.

Re: Mind the Burndown, Comrade – Scrum Propaganda Posters

#40

Post by tirrellp »

mempko wrote: post #25
tirrellp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scrum focuses on "systemwide" optimization where the "system" is the development of an increment of a software product from concept to completion. Letting a good developer "rocket ahead" optimizes for that developer (localized optimization) but not for the complete system (global optimization). A more "global" optimization of that developer's time and energy, since they can do twice the work in half the time, is to m…

Scrum requires that all team members are already competent and fast. Don't let this consulting company fool you.

Its helpful for all team members to be, as you put it, "competent and fast", its not absolutely necessary (in order for Scrum to work), and in a lot of companies, its not the case.

The purpose of Scrum is to highlight issues and bottlenecks in the 'system' so they can be addressed.

"Wide skill variances in team members skillsets" is one such problem, and a fairly common one. One remedy is to drop the dead weight, either through management/hr action or natural attrition. Another remedy is to upgrade the skills of the people who are "behind" using the people who are "ahead" as mentors.

- The Consulting Company

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