• merc@sh.itjust.works
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    23 hours ago

    On that subject, does anybody hate the term “Sprint” as much as I do?

    “Sprints” are extremely quick events that last tens of seconds and are done at most once a day, but more often (in competition) a few times a month, or a few times in a day every few months.

    You don’t sprint for a full week every week. That’s a marathon, maybe an ultra-marathon.

    • SoulKaribou@lemmy.ml
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      14 hours ago

      The theory being that the team rushes to complete the prioritised items. Also in theory if you close all items before end of the sprint, you are free to not work, or work on pet project at your own pace.

      Of course middle management hates the idea of others being idle so they asked to squeeze the last part. Efficiency, baby !

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        10 hours ago

        Sure, it might seem like a sprint compared to a Waterfall project where it’s a marathon, where there might be months between points where you check in with the plan and try to figure out if the software is ready to ship yet.

        I still just object to the word “sprint”. Any job where you’re sprinting over and over, week after week, where that’s the main thing you’re doing, you’re doing something wrong.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        16 hours ago

        What makes it so annoying to me is that a sprint implies putting in maximum effort for a short time. The pace of a sprint is unsustainable over more than a few seconds.

        If you say you did “sprints” for over a year… no you didn’t. Either you sprinted for a little bit and then had to walk for a while because you’d used up all your energy. Or, you jogged at a sustainable pace for a year and just called it a sprint.

        • daeraxa@programming.dev
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          4 hours ago

          Oh absolutely. It wasn’t even close to being sparkling chaos, let alone Agile. What we had as ‘sprints’ would be more accurate as Epics. The whole thing was insane but they stuck with the terminology…

  • bignose@programming.dev
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    1 day ago

    Screenshotting a text post on the Fediverse, to post an opaque image on the Fediverse.

    The post was right there to be shared.

  • megopie@beehaw.org
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    1 day ago

    “Well, to get people to consider if our method is potentially applicable to their situation and needs, we need to give it descriptive names that sound dynamic and cool to get their attention. If it’s not right for their needs they’ll disregard it of course.”

    The business idiots: “Hmmm, yes, fancy words, trendy, apply it immediately to everything so I can say I “over saw implementation” on my resume next time I hop jobs”

  • thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    From experience most hate from project management systems come from people just don’t understand it and implement it poorly. Usually the miss the point. Unfortunately those are the people who need the structure the most.

    • cbazero@programming.dev
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      7 hours ago

      The ‘hate’ is the obvious observation that most forms of project management do and can not work while they are done over and over again with the non-argument ‘If it does not work, you are not doing it right’.

  • lugal@sopuli.xyz
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    2 days ago

    You forgot “We use JIRA so we are agile now. I assigned all tickets so get to work and be done at the end of the week sprint”

    • Madrigal@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      The one I like is “we have no fucking idea what we’re trying to build other than a vague problem statement, so start testing already. This is Agile.”

      • red_tomato@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        ”Our plan is to continuously make up new shit along the way and hope we eventually get something we can deliver”

    • deathmetal27@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      For you perhaps but for the scrum master it helps identify whether the sprint is on track and whether there are any new discoveries/realities identified during the previous days work that might impact the Sprint’s goals.

      This is fundamental to the emperical nature of scrum: there is no improvement without inspection.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      23 hours ago

      Especially when they’re called “standups” but everybody sits down because they typically last an hour or so.

      • bignose@programming.dev
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        11 hours ago

        Yet another way that the good ideas from Agile got crushed to meaninglessness by Business Idiocy.

        The whole point of the “stand up meeting” is, by forcing everyone to stand together, to encourage everyone to keep it brief and to the point, so it benefits everyone without sucking their time.

        • bignose@programming.dev
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          11 hours ago

          Of course, that works only when everyone’s in the same room. I don’t have a good replacement for teams that connect remotely.

          • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
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            8 hours ago

            We have a NeatBoard that’s configured for Zoom. So our stand ups are in front of this TV thing and it works well for us.

            Then again, our stand ups are short and to the point. We’re closer to kanban than scrum.

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      1 day ago

      I did have actual stand ups once, after coming back from China and all I could think of was “shit I hope they don’t make us sing the corp’s anthem at the end!” like they do over there…

  • marcos@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    It’s agile if the plan is constantly reviewed with every new information in mind and you can change what you are working in to better implement it.

    If you do do Scrum, that’s almost never the case.

    • StenSaksTapir@feddit.dk
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      1 day ago

      I had the misfortune of working under SAFE – Scalee agile or something. It was waterfall wearing a festive and extremely expensive Agile mask.

      I think more than 60 devs all working in the same codebase, a trading platform, and doing planning sprints individually, playing planning poker to estimate feature of features of features up to three months in the future. Most ridiculous thing I ever participated in and that says a lot.

      • AliasVortex@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I’m not super fond of SAFE either

        waterfall wearing a festive and extremely expensive Agile mask.

        Is exactly the experience I had in my last two shops.