Re:Agile Is Dead – Pragmatic Dave Thomas [video]
by squeaky-clean on Friday April 22, 2016 @01:15PM
(#11550712)
I tried out Scrum at my company on a small team that matches these conditions, and it was incredible. I think the biggest points are the same value system, we all had the same standards for quality, and we were excited to try a new way of managing ourselves that we were open to adapting and being flexible about. And the trust to allow that to happen, and criticize the process without feeling like we were criticizing each other.
The Sprint Review sections were most beneficial, because we were all quick to say what we felt needed changing, and everyone was excited to try. If we did something radical, we could call a 1-week sprint instead, or plan the sprint that we could easily adjust it and start a new one if that method didn't work, just in case the new method ended up sucking.
The first month of it was weird, and eventually a few months in we were an extremely well-oiled machine running a system that was nothing like the original Scrum plan we followed, because we learned which parts worked best for us, and which didn't, and experimented with adding a few methods of our own to the system.
The rest of the company moved onto Agile/Scrum after seeing our small team, but I don't think the majority of them are handling it well at all. The process isn't adaptable, if devs speak up about things they don't like, the managers tell them to "trust the process" and give it time (BUT THE PROCESS IS ALL ABOUT CHANGING THE PROCESS AND NOT BLINDLY TRUSTING THE ORIGINAL PROCESS!!!), and many of them would rather not work in a management system that should adapt like that. I'll get asked for advice on why their daily standups aren't working, give feedback, "Well that would involve changing things, and we'd rather not do that..."
Really, they're just doing waterfall but with daily standups and a bi-weekly planning session which is mostly meaningless. Whatever, at least the team I'm on now is willing to play it the dynamic way (myself and another member of that original scrum team are in it), and we're enjoying it very much.
The Sprint Review sections were most beneficial, because we were all quick to say what we felt needed changing, and everyone was excited to try. If we did something radical, we could call a 1-week sprint instead, or plan the sprint that we could easily adjust it and start a new one if that method didn't work, just in case the new method ended up sucking.
The first month of it was weird, and eventually a few months in we were an extremely well-oiled machine running a system that was nothing like the original Scrum plan we followed, because we learned which parts worked best for us, and which didn't, and experimented with adding a few methods of our own to the system.
The rest of the company moved onto Agile/Scrum after seeing our small team, but I don't think the majority of them are handling it well at all. The process isn't adaptable, if devs speak up about things they don't like, the managers tell them to "trust the process" and give it time (BUT THE PROCESS IS ALL ABOUT CHANGING THE PROCESS AND NOT BLINDLY TRUSTING THE ORIGINAL PROCESS!!!), and many of them would rather not work in a management system that should adapt like that. I'll get asked for advice on why their daily standups aren't working, give feedback, "Well that would involve changing things, and we'd rather not do that..."
Really, they're just doing waterfall but with daily standups and a bi-weekly planning session which is mostly meaningless. Whatever, at least the team I'm on now is willing to play it the dynamic way (myself and another member of that original scrum team are in it), and we're enjoying it very much.