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SCRUM was one of the best environment I've worked in.
Without knowing name, place and context, I can surmise that the person running the show has no clue about SCRUM. Yes, SCRUM is about self - organizing but in this context, it is a buck-passing game. Either you are surrounded by perennial variety of developers or you've gotten clueless project manager or both.
If you care about the company and project, take charge of situation but be prepared for political aftermath and resultant consequences
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I think a few people on the group do know about SCRUM, but the group as a whole is very new with it. I still need to give it time, but this post is about my initial reactions. I'm hoping that I can post a follow up about how good it is in a few months.
Hogan
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Where is you company based? What line of work are you in? (I mean the industry vertical that your s/w product is aiming at)
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ExcellentOrg wrote: SCRUM was one of the best environment I've worked in.
How many formal process control methodologies have you worked under for real company projects?
How large are the teams both for your current success and other failures?
ExcellentOrg wrote: or you've gotten clueless project manager or both.
SCRUM doesn't define a "project manager" and in normal business practice the role of "project manager" is not one that controls people but instead manages tasks. Perhaps you meant something more general like "manager".
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jschell wrote: ExcellentOrg wrote: SCRUM was one of the best environment I've worked in.
How many formal process control methodologies have you worked under for real company projects?
How large are the teams both for your current success and other failures?
I have worked in a few; Change Control; Waterfall (aka SDLC); In my very first SCRUM project, team size was 5; In second project, it was 20+. In SDLC, actual team size were in 100s but individual tasks were granulated "fine" so one rarely worked with more than 3 ppl at a time. Change Control was the weirdest formal mgmt one: On some days, I had so much work that I would not have time for lunch; On other days,
I'd be free from 9 to 5 and would find it hard to kill time at work.
All said and done, SCRUM does rely on relative honesty of all Project stake holders....
Currently, I run my own company and work solo but I do hire freelancers at which point, I use ideas I learnt for SCRUM.
SCRUM doesn't define a "project manager" and in normal business practice the role of "project manager" is not one that controls people but instead manages tasks. Perhaps you meant something more general like "manager".
Yes. Project Manager is more of a formal organizational designation. SCRUM keyword for the same role is
"Scrum Master". More often than not, that responsibility falls on heads of Project Manager or a Tech Lead.
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snorkie wrote: I've been doing SCRUM development for 4 weeks now and it feels like a huge waste of time.
It's not uncommon for a company to need 1-2 years (empirical numbers based on my own an my friends companies) before feeling effective in doing Scrum.
Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time - Bertrand Russel
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The desire is to make software development function like other manufacturing things of the past ... and it just ain't gonna happen until the robots are doing the work. SW dev is still a very new industry; and it changes every week. The work I was doing from '88 - '95 was very much agile but we didn't call it "agile" - we called it "let's get this stuff out there now" (it was online work prior to the www coming into its own). Since then I've done agile and waterfall and tequila-driven-dev and ......
I'm now working for a [very large] company and Agile Dev is the latest and greatest NEW thing!! It's wonderful! Our standups are via webex (as I type, there are 12 other people on the call); I'm muted. Basically, we spend 3 hours/week with this; I'd estimate about 18% efficiency. But, it's what they want to do; I get paid by the hour - their call.
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It seems like the team is still getting used to the SCRUM mentality but as with most projects, there's probably little time to waste on them getting up to speed.
In reply to your original complaints and a couple of things that will help the scrum run better are:
1. Would any self organizing team of developers actually plan to meet every day?
A. Yes, the team need to meet everyday so they are fully aware of where they are in the development process and where their team mates are. They need to be made fully aware (usually by the scrum master) of what each meeting will focus on and what is expected of them.
2. About half of the 15 minute morning morning consists of, "Lets have a Meet After to Discuss". Half the team stays after the meeting every day. How about just discussing it now and getting it over with?
A. If they are having to have follow on meetings from the scrum, these should be formalised so that the results of the meetings can be shared at the next day's scrum. This will make sure that everyone is fully aware of any potential issues that could impact on their work and as they will have to put more into it than just chat for a while they will probably cut down on the amount of "discussions".
3. The other half of our 15 minute morning meetings is just to state that the status hasn't changed from yesterday
A. This needs to be addressed, if there is no progress from one scrum to the next then the project is essentially stalled. If they are saying nothing has changed since yesterday then challenge them on why there is no change and what they are doing to address this. Whatever you do don't let this carry on. It is counter productive and other team members will start to get the impression that they are either doing all the work when others aren't pulling their weight or they will take it as the norm and just stop making progress on their part.
From experience the simplest way to keep a scrum going is:
1. Give an update of where the project is along with any priorities.
2. Each person says what they accomplished yesterday and what they will accomplish today.
3. Everyone has a say and they need to question or comment on anything they don't understand or agree with.
4. The scrum leader has to keep the scrum as short as possible but at the same time covering everything that needs to be discussed. If the team is large, make certain people responsible for giving the updates rather than everyone chipping in.
5. Make sure that you thank everyone for their work and contribution to the scrum.
modified 10-Oct-13 16:09pm.
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 Member 8261648 wrote: It seems like the team is still getting used to the SCRUM mentality but as with most projects, there's probably little time to waste on them getting up to speed.
In reply to your original complaints and a couple of things that will help the scrum run better are:
1. Would any self organizing team of developers actually plan to meet every day?
A. Yes, the team need to meet everyday so they are fully aware of where they are in the development process and where their team mates are. They need to be made fully aware (usually by the scrum master) of what each meeting will focus on and what is expected of them.
2. About half of the 15 minute morning morning consists of, "Lets have a Meet After to Discuss". Half the team stays after the meeting every day. How about just discussing it now and getting it over with?
A. If they are having to have follow on meetings from the scrum, these should be formalised so that the results of the meetings can be shared at the next day's scrum. This will make sure that everyone is fully aware of any potential issues that could impact on their work and as they will have to put more into it than just chat for a while they will probably cut down on the amount of "discussions".
3. The other half of our 15 minute morning meetings is just to state that the status hasn't changed from yesterday
A. This needs to be addressed, if there is no progress from one scrum to the next then the project is essentially stalled. If they are saying nothing has changed since yesterday then challenge them on why there is no change and what they are doing to address this. Whatever you do don't let this carry on. It is counter productive and other team members will start to get the impression that they are either doing all the work when others aren't pulling their weight or they will take it as the norm and just stop making progress on their part.
From experience the simplest way to keep a scrum going is:
1. Give an update of where the project is along with any priorities.
2. Each person says what they accomplished yesterday and what they will accomplish today.
3. Everyone has a say and they need to question or comment on anything they don't understand or agree with.
4. The scrum leader has to keep the scrum as short as possible but at the same time covering everything that needs to be discussed. If the team is large, make certain people responsible for giving the updates rather than everyone chipping in.
5. Make sure that you thank everyone for their work and contribution to the scrum.
Loved your advice!!!
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My experience is that the daily standup is a huge time waste. First, unless you force all developers to start at the same time, someone has to interrupt real productivity for the meeting. Further, if you have correctly sized teams, the need to give each other updates is a symptom of poor team cohesiveness. You have a board showing who is doing what and you should talk to each other more than once a day. As for the other people? I don't get why all developers should be interrupted for their sake.
The best part is moving the longer discussions until after. This way, the real workers can get back to productivity while the snobs waste more time discussing details while not discussing details and other crap like that.
If your status hasn't changed, then you are doing it wrong. Ideally your work should be carved up in small enough pieces that once can tell that things are happening.
Obviously, I am not a big fan of Scrum. And while I am a huge fan of iterative development, I think the talking heads should spend 15 minutes reading the source of "waterfall" and realize that it in fact started with iterative development as the first premise was that until they had some work done, they couldn't possibly know what success would look like.
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I agree with your thoughts on the meetings being a large interruption. Ours start at 9:30 am. It interrupts the morning 
After talking about SCRUM with another coworker yesterday, I came to the thought that SCRUM is not for developers, but for management to track work. I don't see this as good or bad, just an observation. Good managers/developers will make most environments successful regardless of the process.
Hogan
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I also agree. But, to sound like devil's advocate, we should plan ahead for the meeting. We know it is coming at the appointed time. So don't get too deep in your work. Possibly, scheduling the scrum meeting at a better time, say just after lunch, at the end of the day, when every one gets in may work out. The idea time would be before or after everyone has or had that inspirational moment. The hard part is making sure that all of the participants are present at the meeting time.
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James Lonero wrote: I also agree. But, to sound like devil's advocate, we should plan ahead for the meeting. We know it is coming at the appointed time. So don't get too deep in your work. Possibly, scheduling the scrum meeting at a better time, say just after lunch, at the end of the day, when every one gets in may work out. The idea time would be before or after everyone has or had that inspirational moment. The hard part is making sure that all of the participants are present at the meeting time.
Best time of meeting is at start of work; typically 9AM or 9:30; Meetings in mid-day or end-of-day will cause confusion and will result in either ppl not starting work before SCRUM or having to undo the work post feedback from meeting.
Productivity of Meetings is directly proportional to percentage of brains present in it. Note, I am saying brains, not bodies. I too have had days when I was physically present and mentally absent
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Mrs Wife is being a dirty stop out, so we will be dining on Toad In The Hole [Girls choice, not mine] and then a movie. The gin and the tonic is on ice ready to steady my nerves. There is also some scrumpy that may well need to be addressed.
speramus in juniperus
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Wand Erection have a film out already? I didn't know that - you'll enjoy sitting through that with the ickles... 
The only instant messaging I do involves my middle finger.
English doesn't borrow from other languages.
English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.
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Tonight's movie is Ice Cold in Alex.
speramus in juniperus
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That's older than I am! 
So who picked that? And how did you manage to get away from "Epic - the Animated Drivel"?
The only instant messaging I do involves my middle finger.
English doesn't borrow from other languages.
English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.
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Good choice, but I'd have gone with one of:
The Great Escape
The Battle Of The Bulge
Jason and The Argonauts
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: The Great Escape
Watched last week.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote: The Battle Of The Bulge
Too loud for little ears.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote: Jason and The Argonauts
When I watch that it just reminds me of my bad knees.
speramus in juniperus
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Would anyone care to translate this post into American English for this poor ignorant soul?
It sounds like Nagy is intending to perform unnatural acts with a toad during a movie, and he's planning on getting drunk beforehand.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Toad in the Hole - Sausages surrounded by batter; try google.
Drunk - as charged.
Scrumpy - It's a cider made with apples; well mostly apples.
speramus in juniperus
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Whoo, that's a relief. 
Software Zen: delete this;
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Not if you know what Nagy considers a "sausage" 
The only instant messaging I do involves my middle finger.
English doesn't borrow from other languages.
English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.
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Now now!
speramus in juniperus
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We know what you are like - Dalek still has the video from your last trip to Luton: the one with the goat and the rubber sink plunger?
The only instant messaging I do involves my middle finger.
English doesn't borrow from other languages.
English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.
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