Usually the idea is you move onto another task since you have multiple allocated at one time, then ask briefly for guidance during the standup when everyone has put time aside, rather than interrupting everyone throughout the day.

Blockers are not just people and usually it's not done for accountability. They can be undocumented APIs, an unfamiliar requirement ("do we already have a way to extract images from PDFs before I download this new thing?"), etc.

If it is urgent and your only option is to sit there and do nothing then asking the team for help during the day is fine. Just weigh up the cost of interrupting everyone (or that high-performer who has all the answers) against what you gain.

> If it is urgent and your only option is to sit there and do nothing then asking the team for help during the day is fine.

Sit there and do nothing for awhile just may be the right thing to do!

I'm thinking about the Theory of Constraints and optimizing a system versus individual parts. This is a concept you would want your PM to know. So when they are mentally mapping the workflow heard during standups, they can be thinking about optimizing the entire production system.

Next step is the importance of communicating this to everyone on the team, so that they understand that there may be times when the right thing to do is nothing.

"Hey, I spent all yesterday trying to get X to work but I think I'm stuck"

"Hey I was trying to use Mary's api but I couldn't figure it out, can someone help me find who to contact?"

If you ask immediately for help all the time you aren't being self sufficient. At the same time if you are spinning your wheels then just a second pair of eyes can be helpful.

I had a new manager start his first weekly meeting by asking if there was anything on fire. People filled the ensuing silence with recent annoyances. Of course nothing is on fire right now (and I get it’s a metaphor). If something is “on fire”, I’m not waiting till the Monday meeting to bring it up. I’m not even going to attend the mandatory meeting while I put it out, if that’s when it happens. That’s the definition of on fire.

To be fair, your new manager doesn't know that's how you operate. It seems a reasonable question to me, with the expected answer being no. But why not ask just in case? You wouldn't want to be the new manager who just launches into new business not realizing that one of your developers is too timid to interrupt you with the major breaking bug that's currently live, or whatever. Once they get to know the team and can trust that you'd be on top of that kind of thing, it's another story.

Maybe I’m too sensitive to the phrase “on fire”. I can’t imagine someone at a factory starting a meeting the same way.

He was perhaps trying to get a feel for the team?