Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#61

Post by dx034 » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 12:53 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #31

kozhevnikov wrote: post #7

Daily stand-ups have two formats, one is Round Robin that has origins in Scrum, other is Walk the Board that is more Kanban. I highly recommend you switching from "did yesterday/do today" to "walking the board" as it is less about checking what each employee delivered in a day but rather what the team can do to move tickets through the board. It is also more inclusive allowing quiet/introverted/non-native English spe…

I like to alternate these. One day we do a round robin, the other we walk the board. It helps to have different perspectives on the work you're doing.

Also like this method. Walking to board every day isn't always necessary, there shouldn't be that many changes from one day to the next. But by only using round robin every other day, people actually have something to say.

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#62

Post by rumanator » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 12:59 PM UTC

ses1984 wrote: post #41

rumanator wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be noted that the "round robin" format has an important aspect which is to enable each team member to air his/her personal grievances regarding anything related to the project.

Grievances should relate to a ticket on the board, if not then make a ticket for it, if not that then is the grievance important?

> Grievances should relate to a ticket on the board, if not then make a ticket for it, if not that then is the grievance important?

That mindset is precisely the reason why these meetings are important, because these grievances might not necessarily reflect or deserve a ticket. They might be nothing or they might be something. What's important is that these meetings create a space where they can safely be addressed without creating any burden on the team and on the individual reporting them.

I've read somewhere that these meetings work as therapy for the team. Perhaps by putting it this way you might better understand the issues these meetings solve.

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#63

Post by mikece » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 1:01 PM UTC

Q. Are daily scrum meetings worth it?

Programmers: no.

Project managers: Why can't we do this twice a day?

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#64

Post by ferreus » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 1:01 PM UTC

The one true benefit that i remember from my time working in scrum was when we moved the scrum meeting from morning to 12 o`clock. And the benefit? After the meeting, everyone was already standing, so we went straight to lunch as a group without any further delay. Saved a lot of time and effort to organize everyone.

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#65

Post by twic » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 1:04 PM UTC

einpoklum wrote: post #3

This kind of daily meetings make me feel like I'm standing trial for my crimes. Especially if I've had a bad/down/unproductive day, which happens. Maybe it's better when you take away the power relations. And reduce the frequency during non-critical periods.

Making classic standups useful and comfortable definitely requires psychological safety. You need to feel like you can occasionally say "worked on X, didn't make any progress", and a manager or a rival isn't going to pounce on you for it.

If you don't have pervasive psychological safety, there's a lot of stuff from XP that isn't going to work.

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#66

Post by _tkzm » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 1:04 PM UTC

i loved the dailies. it was the best way to earn money without doing any work. i always tried to prolong the meetings as much as possible. ah, i miss those days.

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#67

Post by THrau » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

pszndr wrote: post #55

Every article: Title: Is [x] better than [y]? Article: Depends on context

Well, isn't this how the world works? If yes, then x. If not, then y. I'm happy to live in a non-binary world.

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#68

Post by kierenj » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

a_ranom_dev wrote: post #49

I'm sorry, stand ups are literally a psychological trick played by middle managers to put pressure on devs. They undoubtably lead to higher turnover from devs fleeing chickenshit and I've never seen one actually lead to better code.

I would wager that 'better code' isn't the main (or even a major) objective of standups... getting the project done is. But both are important

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#69

Post by kierenj » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

agigao wrote: post #58

NO.

Because?

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#70

Post by distantaidenn » Mon, Jan 13, 2020, 1:07 PM UTC

a_ranom_dev wrote: post #49

I'm sorry, stand ups are literally a psychological trick played by middle managers to put pressure on devs. They undoubtably lead to higher turnover from devs fleeing chickenshit and I've never seen one actually lead to better code.

In a past life as a Product Manager, one of my top devs rarely attended standups. One day, she rolled into the office mid standup, went over to the coffee machine, and prepared a cup. Never looked in our direction, and proceeded to begin her work.

Later during our 1-1, I asked her what the issue was, and she bluntly told me that she thought standups were useless.

I never brought it up again, as she was an amazing developer, and her documentation was absolutely pristine. After that, I myself stopped seeing the value in universal standups. If a person is good, they make it known in other ways.