I probably agree with some of the points of the article. However, when you're in a management position, you need some kind of measure that gives you previsibility. Not the best, not the worst. Serves a role.
I don’t believe in sprints
41–50 of 459 posts
Re: I don’t believe in sprints
#42I don't want to be rude; but this essay really isn't useful. It's a rant.
To the author:
You don't like sprints or backlogs? Okay. So what's the alternative?
Take step back, think about the problem that agile tries to provide solutions for. Now start thinking about new solutions .. spend some time; then write an essay that makes a difference.
Re: I don’t believe in sprints
#43Sprints are like cogs. They enable teams to organise dependent tasks. If you're happy to just say "We'll write the code for this when the designs are done, and we'll finish the designs when the requirements are agreed" then you don't need sprints. If you want to say to people "We'll have this done in 6 weeks" then you need to have 'slots' where you can organise when the work is done. Those are sprints.
Re: I don’t believe in sprints
#44Sprints are a good tool to transform bad teams into better teams. No amount of process and tools is going to convert a good team into being a great one.
Great teams do not need additional processes to deliver value and they usually are more of an obstacle. Clear goals and a vision are much more important, as well as having an environment where the decision makers are the one implementing the solution.
Re: I don’t believe in sprints
#45Rich Hickey has a great joke about sprints, paraphrasing: So how do we run a marathon? That's right, we run a 200m wind sprint! Then another sprint, and another, and pretty soon... Of course no one does this, you'd die! We don't do this in software either, for the same reason. But when we talk about 'sprints' this is what we tell ourselves we're doing.
Right - I can't believe how so much of the programming community got suckered into spending their entire career sprinting like mad people from one deadline to another, as if it was a good thing!
Re: I don’t believe in sprints
#46This is just a bad hot take. It does not even propose anything that's better. Just do work and it will be there? How? I'm confused. And, i, my self, don't believe sprints are 100% the best, but for us it helps to manage load, see how much we can do, and make sure everyone is on the same page. It's not a bible, it's just another tool in the chain.
Re: I don’t believe in sprints
#47My experience with agile:
Sprints and standups are degrading tools to enable extremely subpar management to maintain their role.
Tell me why a properly functioning agile shop even needs a manager.
Re: I don’t believe in sprints
#48I agree with the title, but the article fails to deliver on the essence - saying "points are bureaucracy, backlog is bureaucracy" does not really say what is the problem, it does not explain what's an alternative to backlog that helps to solve the same problem (visibility of the work to be done, predictability, etc.) For me the biggest problem with sprints is that they force a continuous flow into discrete boxes. An…
Why do you need visibility and/or predictability? I would say Steve Yegge's classic Good Agile, Bad Agile gives the answer - Kanban (or, more informally, a work queue).
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Re: I don’t believe in sprints
#49Rich Hickey has a great joke about sprints, paraphrasing: So how do we run a marathon? That's right, we run a 200m wind sprint! Then another sprint, and another, and pretty soon... Of course no one does this, you'd die! We don't do this in software either, for the same reason. But when we talk about 'sprints' this is what we tell ourselves we're doing.
I liked the joke when I heard it. Reading it now, I'm realizing that "marathon" doesn't fit as a metaphor because we don't know the destination. Orienteering, perhaps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orienteering
Marathon works perfectly to show how bonkers the idea of sprinting is.
I like the idea of thinking of software development more as orienteering, if anything, it doesn't go far enough.
To deliver full-featured software in time (note I didn't say on time, but there is certainly such a thing as delivering too late) is 10% velocity and 90% dependency resolution.
I'm still looking for a tool which thinks primarily in terms of dependencies, and treats time as it is: fixed in the past and speculative in the future. I don't care if the person who put the information into the computer thinks something will take three weeks, I care very much if there are three projects which need completing before the main track can get past the third step.
Re: I don’t believe in sprints
#50I don't care what anyone believes in, I respect your perspective. I think sprints and modern agile practices are an anti-pattern as practiced today especially in big tech. I've seen very few teams who operate like a well oiled machine using them though.
What is important however is some type of shared vision or general plan. Not all teams are lucky enough to even have that. Some people treat their job as a job. Some people treat their job as their life's mission. Much of this definition gets lost in translation in the middle.
In theory a team full of product-minded engineers / self-managing individuals don't need much to be impactful because they will know where to add value and make progress while being looped into the industry/customers.