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The "3 standup questions" are terrible and need to die

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Re: The "3 standup questions" are terrible and need to die

#61

Post by rkuodys »

JohnFen wrote: post #19
ng12 wrote: post #5

The primary point of standup is to make sure the team gets face-time together every day to talk about their shared workload. Humans are social creatures and getting everyone together for a few minutes is a pretty high ROI activity.

Standups could make sense in a team that isn't operating well, but in a well-functioning team, everyone is having these sorts of discussions with each other during the natural course of each workday anyway. Standups are unnecessary then. My experience with standups is that they're almost entirely worthless. They're rote and performative and rarely, if ever, provide anything that was missing.

I think that there is separation between intentional knowledge transfer and accidental. It's great as an opportunity for accidental knowledge transfer, where one developer didn't know she could ask for help by another developer. Or that task can be picked up because it hasnt changes the status yet( not released) but other can start working if needed.

Re: The "3 standup questions" are terrible and need to die

#62

Post by ipaddr »

astura wrote: post #59
mvdtnz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often blockers can persist for several days or even weeks if they come from external factors. If your manager/team lead spots that you've reported the same blockage from infrastructure twice in a row they can chase that up for you. The idea that any given blocker could/should be resolved within the same working day is just a fantasy.

Yep, my team rarely reports blockers but when they do it's almost always some external factor. If they are reporting the same thing multiple days in a row, I can light a fire under someone's ass, otherwise I might not even know about it.

Why does your staff tell you right away that the timeline has been pushed because of this and why do you need to be told daily?

Gantt charts exist for a reason

Re: The "3 standup questions" are terrible and need to die

#63

Post by ipaddr »

bluGill wrote: post #40
ipaddr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate standup culture. If you have a blocker waiting until the next morning is so wasteful.

You probably also hate it when someone interrupts your flow to ask for help with their blocker.

No I want to know immediately. Does mean help is coming right away but the heads up is appreciated so I can prioritize

Re: The "3 standup questions" are terrible and need to die

#64

Post by awildfivreld »

> and suddenly the manager walks on to the pitch and says, “OK, gather around! Where did you kick the ball yesterday? Where are you planning on kicking it today? Any blockers?”

There are sports, like handball, where each coach can call a very short timeout at more or less any time during the game for exactly this purpose. The team and coach gets to spend a minute together to adjust their tactics on the fly, based on what is working, and what isn't.

Otherwise, I agree with the conclusion of this piece, that a manager/leader should tailor their meeting(s) to what is required for their specific team to work best. If the team consists of people that all pro-actively communicate, then the meeting might not be needed. If the team has problems with making deliveries on time, then slightly more shepherding is perhaps needed.

Re: The "3 standup questions" are terrible and need to die

#65

Post by convolvatron »

JohnFen wrote: post #19
ng12 wrote: post #5

The primary point of standup is to make sure the team gets face-time together every day to talk about their shared workload. Humans are social creatures and getting everyone together for a few minutes is a pretty high ROI activity.

Standups could make sense in a team that isn't operating well, but in a well-functioning team, everyone is having these sorts of discussions with each other during the natural course of each workday anyway. Standups are unnecessary then. My experience with standups is that they're almost entirely worthless. They're rote and performative and rarely, if ever, provide anything that was missing.

I've begun to believe that all of this ceremony is driven from an unspoken belief that well functioning software teams are a myth.

sure it would be great if people raised issues themselves instead of skulking. were proactive, took pride in their work, engaged joyfully with their collaborators, and developed real consensus and velocity.

but that's just a fairy tale. developers are generally useless, stubborn, lazy, petty, and fundamentally disorganized. lets not shoot for the moon and try to get them to work together. lets just dumb the whole thing down to try to get _something_ out of them.

Re: The "3 standup questions" are terrible and need to die

#66

Post by khokhol »

ng12 wrote: post #5

The primary point of standup is to make sure the team gets face-time together every day to talk about their shared workload. Humans are social creatures and getting everyone together for a few minutes is a pretty high ROI activity.

Sure, we get it. But when you add forced rituals to the mix (such as the very worst: coerced standing), it ends up being just numbing and grating, especially over time.

And when it gets to the point where you can just tell that most people are mouthing something to check boxes, while checking out, internally -- in that sense, it basically defeats the intended purpose.

Re: The "3 standup questions" are terrible and need to die

#67

Post by ipaddr »

BeetleB wrote: post #57
ipaddr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate standup culture. If you have a blocker waiting until the next morning is so wasteful.

You're missing the purpose. It isn't to just sit and wait till the next day to get help. It's to highlight issues that could not be resolved in that time frame, and pointing out that help (or intervention) is necessary. It's the equivalent of saying "Service X was down yesterday, still hasn't come up, and if nothing is done about it, we'll lose another day." In teams without standups, these blockers could go on for s…

Server is still down today.. we can forget about it until tomorrow meeting. Look it's still down.

Cancel the standup and go work on the server.

A meeting around this issue with people from other teams/external actors causing the blockage is the help you need. Not a daily status meeting. The standup rarely helps here

Re: The "3 standup questions" are terrible and need to die

#68

Post by poisonborz »

Yes the good old format of "take an everyday developer routine and attack it, thus causing outrage and clicks". Standups are necessary. It gives a start in the day. The 3 questions are necessary but short, they are answered in 10 seconds. All the other additional ad-hoc info is what's important.
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