#agile #scrum #tech #softwaredevelopment #meme #funny

@travisfw @kwramm The ”immutable” Scrum Guide has been updated(!) many times since I was doing anything called Scrum more than 15 years ago, and conveniently that version of the document seems hard to find, but I believe you. But even the current Scrum Guide says that ”Other sources provide patterns, processes, and insights that complement the Scrum framework”.

@crazyeddie @mwshook @PavelASamsonov There are some things that are useful in Scrum, but those things are usually what gets thrown out first.

Then there are things like ”velocity” that is some real bullshit.

And once you have ”leaders” imposing Scrum, it’s not self-organised anymore. So in practice it probably only works when the team is self-organised to begin with, which makes the whole framework have very limited value.

@ahltorp @travisfw well, yes, it's been part of the Scrum "story" just like certifications, trainers and whatnot. But it's not integral to Scrum.

You can do Scrum without "Velocity". You can use any other method to a) track how much work you do (better = track how much value is delivered and realized) and b) how much you can commit and reliably deliver at the end of the sprint (overcommitting = disappointed client).
You could track man-hours instead, and it works.

@ahltorp @crazyeddie @mwshook @PavelASamsonov I've worked with someone who was keen on "velocity" and quite unreasonable about sticking to it. Fortunately I haven't encountered anyone else who used the term, let alone is that unreasonable about sticking to it. I'd probably end up a nervous, twitching wreck if I did!

@kwramm I can’t rely completely on my memory here, because Scrum has just existed around me for about 20 years, and I haven’t cared about it so much that I’ve remembered dates.

But as I understand it, Scrum (as a generic corporate tool) began as books and certifications, then the Scrum guide came later. So ”integral to Scrum” can’t really be defined by what’s in the Scrum guide. And in fact certifications seem to have been very integral to ”what Scrum is” in the early days.

@ahltorp what I mean with integral is that you can take velocity tracking away (and certifications, and story points, and trainers, and planning poker, and whatever fluff they try to upsell you) and you can still do the whole Scrum thing: empiricism, the events, the roles.

Those 3 things have always been there from the beginning. They change here and there a bit, but overall that's Scrum. That's why it's a framework. Being dogmatic about implementation is pretty much the least Agile thing

@kwramm Upselling and the Scrum-Industrial-Complex has also been there from the beginning, and I would argue are even more foundational than the actual core parts.

I can agree that there should be a simple framework that is free from the fluff, and I guess the ”Scrum Guide” is an attempt at that, but Scrum as a name has never been free from the fluff as long as I’ve seen it.

@ahltorp @crazyeddie @mwshook @PavelASamsonov I've worked with someone who was keen on "velocity" and quite unreasonable about sticking to it. Fortunately I haven't encountered anyone else who used the term, let alone is that unreasonable about sticking to it. I'd probably end up a nervous, twitching wreck if I did!

@geoglyphentropy @ahltorp @mwshook @PavelASamsonov Why?

What's upsetting about it?

1. Come up with some metric you use to measure task difficulty. Establish criteria.
2. Practice estimating tasks by estimating tasks.
3. Graph results.
4. Meet occasionally to discuss ways to improve your task estimates. Try to eliminate variance.

This causes seizures?

@geoglyphentropy @ahltorp @mwshook @PavelASamsonov Why?

What's upsetting about it?

1. Come up with some metric you use to measure task difficulty. Establish criteria.
2. Practice estimating tasks by estimating tasks.
3. Graph results.
4. Meet occasionally to discuss ways to improve your task estimates. Try to eliminate variance.

This causes seizures?

@crazyeddie @ahltorp @mwshook @PavelASamsonov It was that my initial estimate was treated as set in stone and any failure to ahere to it was blamed on me. Granted, this is probably a boss being a bully rather than an issue with velocity.

Also, I probably phrased things badly wrt the outcome, I was thinking more of being hypervigilant and very nervous rather than seizures.

@woe2you It’s not only ”we suck at gathering requirements”, it’s also ”it’s often not meaningful to gather requirements in a vacuum”. Those are actually among the good parts, having stakeholder representation in the team. ”Fancy name” is among the bad parts.