Highly-Paid Developers As ScrumMasters?

An anonymous reader writes 'At my company, our mis-implementation of Agile includes the employment of some of our most highly-paid, principal engineers as ScrumMasters. This has effectively resulted in a loss of those engineering functions as these engineers now dedicate their time to ScrumMastery. Furthermore, the ScrumMasters either cannot or do not separate their roles as Team Leads with those of ScrumMastery and — worse — seem to be completely unaware that this poor implementation of Agile development is harmful to our velocity. To date, I have chalked this up to poor leadership, a general lack of understanding of Agile, and an inability to change from traditional roles left over from the waterfall development mode. In addition, I have contended that, for a given Scrum Team, the role of ScrumMaster should be filled by someone of lower impact, such as an intern brought in specifically for that purpose. But I would like to put the questions to Slashdotters as to whether they have seen these same transitional difficulties, what the results have been at their respective companies, or whether they just plain disagree with my assertion that principal engineers should not be relegated to the roles of ScrumMasters.'

Comments

why use scrum in the first place

[Anonymous Coward]

Do without all the agile scrum diddle doo, and you'll be just fine.

you seem to be wasting your time with implementing a particular coding methodology,
instead of doing actual useful coding.

Re:why use scrum in the first place

[hughbar]

Yes agree...I took the taste test in a large UK organisation that does broadcasting, three web projects. First small group, boss + traditional focus, result, something quite difficult delivered in a seven week deadline,

Second two, scrum, bigger projects, lots of random pressure for features during a sprint, no documentation, extremely difficult to add anyone to team because everything was on unreadable post it notes. Result sprawling, unfocused and expensive projects.

To declare interest, I'm old enough to have suffered under waterfall and that doesn't do it in the modern world either, but bad agile is actually a lot worse because it's unmanaged and undocumented.

Re:why use scrum in the first place

[beelsebob]

I don't disagree that scrum can end up a mess, but what you're describing is actually the exact opposite of scrum. For scrum to work, you *have* to have good documentation and good test cases/proofs. If you don't have these, you can't check that your code does what is intended, and hence you can't ever refactor.

If you have no idea what your code does and why, then you'll be too scared to go near it with a refactoring stick, or to rewrite large chunks of it. That's why you've *got* to have good methods of determining if your code is doing what it should.

Re:why use scrum in the first place

[mh1997]

Too bad your company isn't into wrongly implementing total quality leadership or you don't have a few blackbelts to incorrectly implement LEAN. That would set you guys straight.

Re:why use scrum in the first place

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of cretins posting in this thread. The above post is a shining beacon of non stupidity.

A couple of point. ScrumMaster is not a team lead. They are a new role crossing a dash of coach with a large serving of facilitator. ScrumMaster is NOT a low value role, but it is a different role.

Full time, good team facilitators/ScrumMasters are essential and will be drawn from the entire department. Dev, QA, testing etc. What matters is that they are a people person with high integrity. Which is rarer then you would think! Coding ability is irrevelant. It sound like your org has mapped Scrum rather than actually changed to use it (as everyone recommends)

sm is not an intern role. It is not a paperwork role, it is a high value servant leader role that requires the aforementioned skill set.

Ignore every other post in this thread - most people are ignorant and blisteringly stupid.

Re:why use scrum in the first place

[Mikkeles]

'I personally think that it works as presented only in env where intelligent, skilled, knowledgeable and well meaning people work,...'

So, not in the real world? ;^)

Re:why use scrum in the first place

[Matthew Weigel]

No, it's not. "I know you tried to do scrum, but you had a failed project, so you did it wrong."

In my experience, scrum is just snake oil. I don't think it's very good to begin with, but worse is that a) everyone modifies scrum to some extent to fit their organization and b) if a project using slightly modified scrum fails, it was because they modified scrum.

Of course, the solution always seems to be hire more good scrum masters, who are "rarer then you would think!" That's really the part that is snake oil, in my mind. It's a business model for consultants, and the trainers of those consultants. This is even more clear with the scrum model's insistence that a scrum master has a "pig" role.

Maybe all the scrum organizations should promote the idea that every time a scrum project fails (yes, even with modifications, which is how it always works), the scrum master gets fired. Here, "fails" should probably mean over budget or over schedule, by a dollar or a day. That might give the scrum master a role where they feel like their bacon is on the line. But of course that won't happen; scrum masters aren't team leads (as you point out), they're not managers, they're just coaches... one more person not doing the actual work who has to be involved, but with less accountability and more power than anyone else in the project.

Re:why use scrum in the first place

[Unequivocal]

it works as presented only in env where intelligent, skilled, knowledgeable and well meaning people work

Or meaning it works rarely. And more to the point, any methodology works in these circumstances..

Re:why use scrum in the first place

[Cable]

I agree often in my work teams I had to write documentation for programs that didn't have it and do the test cases/proofs myself. Many of my coworkers refused to do such things and it made the job harder. Not only that but they would skip the analysis and design phase and just start coding without a plan or clue.

Management had encouraged cutting corners to get programs done faster, but it would often come back to bite us later.

I often had to rewrite code that someone else wrote and many would leave the company because of the level of difficulty and coworkers cutting corners. I was able to handle it and got part of the legacy software development in cleaning up after other programmers.

Re:why use scrum in the first place

[AigariusDebian]

It is impossible to pick and choose parts of Scrum or other agile methodology without understanding 120% all the interactions between those parts. The most quoted example is write a test for the feature before writing code for the feature - if that thing is cut from Scrum, the project is doomed to fail because it make all other parts of Scrum be based on unreliable, untestable, unquantifiable foundation.

I have written a thesis about this problem - almost all project that "used agile development" methods and then failed, were trying to cut too many corners and modified a developed methodology breaking it in the process.

It is like this - even a 5 year old can use a microwave, but you should be very, very certain about your electronics and physics if you go in and start modifying your microwave (to boost power or to reduce the space it takes, ...). Same with development methodologies - Scrum is a microwave, don't expect it to work safely if you remove the Faraday cage to save some space on your kitchen table.

Re:why use scrum in the first place

[Matthew Weigel]

...if [test-driven development] is cut from Scrum, the project is doomed to fail...

I'm not going to argue against the value of test-driven development, but lack of test-driven development doesn't doom any project. Letting bugs get out the door can doom a project, but there are many-many ways of preventing that other than compulsive unit tests.

I have written a thesis about this problem - almost all project that "used agile development" methods and then failed, were trying to cut too many corners and modified a developed methodology breaking it in the process.

Yes, yes, if a project is agile but modified the Holy Process as defined in some book, and then failed, the failure is because they didn't follow the process. I covered this already. However, you make clear even in this one sentence that you aren't prepared to argue the opposite - that a survey of successful agile projects will show them using scrum (or XP, or...) precisely and without modification. The danger, as you put it, comes from cutting "too many" corners.

Simple question: do you agree that scrum masters should be fired if their project fails? After all, clearly the project wasn't following scrum properly, and it's the scrum master's job to make sure they are, so clearly the job was not done. In fact, the scrum master's failure caused the failure of the entire project! So, what should be done with the scrum master of a failed project?

Re:why use scrum in the first place

[gmrath]

I've seen just this very thing happen where I work. We're still recovering from the results. Not that any of those programs are necessarily bad, per sey, it's just WHO does the implementing . . . you know, the sycophant dancing-and-prancing, ass-kissing, no-real-life-work-experience so-and-soes. I once heard a executive of a high-powered engineering firm doing some contract work for us state he's "never seen an 6-sigma blackbelt that wouldn't get his ass kicked in the parking lot." I agree. Recently due to the, um, economic downturn, a new senior management team came to town. Within a few months the new management plan was obvious: ax the blackbelts: check; ax the total quality leadership program and any other "total" programs found lurking about: check; reduce the LEAN department from many to one: check; try to mitigate the damage done . . . well, that's harder to do both from the perspective of the company's employees and our customers, some of them former customers.

Re:why use scrum in the first place

[shutdown -p now]

In my experience, scrum is just snake oil. I don't think it's very good to begin with, but worse is that a) everyone modifies scrum to some extent to fit their organization and b) if a project using slightly modified scrum fails, it was because they modified scrum.

Isn't that kinda applicable to "agile" as a whole? If you ask any agile adherent why it didn't work for project X, his immediate reply will be that "Agile is a set of principles, not a strict methodology", and that project X required some adjustment to common techniques. If there were some adjustments, then they are immediately shot down as "not in the spirit of agile". And when you ask what "the spirit" is, you get a few things that are really common sense (and that everyone is doing anyway), and a bunch of buzzwords with no well-defined meaning.

From personal experience as a developer, it seems that success or failure of the project is defined much more by the skill of developers and project manajer (the latter is really important: good devs + bad manager deliver a mediocre product at best), and that best project managers have the gut feeling on how to approach everyone particular project, without regard for or adherence to any specific methodology.

Re:why use scrum in the first place

[Dahamma]

Excellent post. From my experience as well, snake oil is a great description.

Here's one easy test for snake oil business/engineering practices: can the concept be described just as easily with normal, everyday vocabulary as the ridiculous technobabble, buzzwords, and metaphors commonly used? If yes, then there is a good chance it is a methodology created for its own sake (and as you said, the sake of the consultants).

Example: "the x-rays show a wedge compression fracture of the C7 vertebrae" is a bit more helpful to a doctor than "looks like he broke his back!" Not snake oil. "Moving the team leader to scrum master is harmful to our velocity" - translation: "making our most experienced programmer a project manager is slowing us down" - yep, snake oil detector going off!

Re:why use scrum in the first place

[Abcd1234]

Ahh, the ol' "It didn't work for you because *you* didn't understand it" argument. The same one trotted out by every snakeoil salesman, con-man, religious leader, and self-proclaimed expert since the dawn of time...

Hurl

[Anonymous Coward]

Goddamn wankfest of a post.

Re:Hurl

[sycodon]

I can see it now. Several years from now, a developer who has been working, doing heads down coding, doing his job, and getting the projects finished, goes for an interview...

"Have you any experience being a ScrumMaster"
"A what?"
"A ScrumMaster"
"I'm sorry, I don't play those online fantasy games"
"No, that's not what I mean"
"Oh...well, I don't play rugby either."

Wrong all wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone does it wrong. Every single place that I've worked has done it differently and failed similarly. Agile + Scrum + Ruby seems to be an epic combination of fail.

Re:Wrong all wrong

[Haeleth]

You probably meant that to be sarcasm, but it's actually the correct response. Let's give up on looking for silver bullets. Let's abandon the stupid idea that slavishly following the latest fashionable religion^Wmethodology is going to produce perfect code.

Instead, let's recognise the truth: development is hard, and the best programmers are orders of magnitude better than the worst. Let's employ the best, pay them decent wages, give them decent work environments, and let them get on with the goddamn job instead of forcing them to play silly mind games.

Re:Wrong all wrong

[eulernet]

You are so right ! In my company, we use Agile since a few years.

If you try to apply the rules exactly, it's doomed to fail.
We only apply a small subset of the rules, and only very few of them seem to work:
  - pair committing (pair programming doesn't work with experienced developers)
  - stand-up meeting (10 daily minutes to explain what we need, what we will do and what has been done)
  - project planning (we give a note to all the tasks the product management assigns us)
  - assigning tasks (before, we were assigned impossible tasks to code in the given amount of time. Agile helped us reduces the amount of stress).

What doesn't work:
  - our velocity is almost zero: mostly because pair-programming is MUCH slower than one man coding
  - the bad focus: if you focus on the code quality or on Agile methods, you lose the goal which is to code faster. We have such a focus on code quality that any simple task requires days to code. It's ridiculous.
  - all the theoretical methods: if you try to apply every new method, you'll spend your time on trying them, instead of doing real work.

From my experience, Agile methods only reduce the amount of stress, since we only work on the most important features, due to the fact that the coding is super slow.
Otherwise, I don't think these methods work.

Re:Wrong all wrong

[Jurily]

instead of forcing them to play silly mind games.

That's why I like Joel's approach.

Re:Wrong all wrong

[Anonymous Cowherd]

Agile is not supposed to make you faster, though that is a common side affect, what it is supposed to do it make you aware of what you can and cannot do so that when things change you can manage that change and it sounds like that is exactly what it is doing for you.

Re:Wrong all wrong

[erroneus]

There are always inherent risks in product development. There are always risks in hiring people to do work for you. This scrum methodology is not the only method that uses deadlines and checkpoints. I recall some of my earliest experience in IT where weekly meetings were held where people would simply state what they were working on and where they are with it while the directors and managers took notes and asked questions and was able to track progress and performance. It's simple and it works. At what point can you say a developer is not apt to do the job? That's for carefully observant leadership to determine.

From what I have read, scrum methods lend themselves to the notion of disposable production teams. "Get it done, do it fast, see you later!" They want short-term hires to come in, "work some magic" and then disappear from their payroll system when they are done. They want to reduce the "overhead" of middle management and other leadership roles.

I'm not sure when business first started to see IT as generic, interchangeable and disposable, but someone needs to inform the C-level people out there that software is NOT a bunch of Lego bricks snapped together and that good and talented people need to be maintained not only for now, but for the unforeseeable tomorrow. The methods and hierarchical structures that have evolved over centuries were no accident and should be given respect as something that works, but consumes money. The hungry greed for lower overhead processes and quicker production fails to care about the results in the product.

"Oh, if only I could get things done better by wishing harder...!"

Re:Wrong all wrong

[lastchance_000]

Not to mention that improved code quality means less time spent fixing things in the future, either because bugs were avoided, or because the code is easier to maintain.

Re:Wrong all wrong

[sycodon]

But, I have been on teams where the thought of smashing the crap out another team member would have been a great idea.

Re:Wrong all wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Silly mind games? Like these:

Please take five minutes to read over this three-page requirements document, and then produce a to-the-hour precise estimate for me without taking any time at all to look at the existing code or produce an implementation plan. Once I have the estimate I will make client-commitments based on it, and hold you to it.

Or

Ok fine, do your research and take a long time to make the estimate. I will therefore expect it to be God's Holy Truth accurate, and hold you to it, even though I will be changing the requirements during development.

Or

Bob produced this estimate. But he is on vacation for two weeks, so you will have to implement it. He didn't write up any implementation guidelines or anything, but I am sure you will be able to implement what he had in mind, and I am holding you to the deadline we set for him.

Or

This problem seems pretty simple from the high-level view. Therefore, I think your estimate is too big. I think we can beat it if we code aggressively. So do this, but make sure that coding aggressively doesn't introduce any new bugs. If it does, I will expect you to fix those on your own time.

These are some problems agile is designed to solve. In my opinion, the reason so many people do agile incorrectly is not because agile itself is fundamentally misguided, but because it requires a higher level of abstract thought and critical thinking than most people are capable of. People think they understand it, but they don't, so they do it wrong, and it makes things worse, so they give up on agile. I know it makes me sound like an erudite elitist. I make no apologies. Agile is not for the feint-of-mind.

Re:Wrong all wrong

[Crimsonjade]

The gp is talking about code quality and you are countering his argument with an anecdote on testing? Code quality means people are not doing things that make the code impossible/very difficult to maintain. Things like keeping business logic separate from the view logic.

In regards to your post: Why can't you run the entire test suite each evening if it takes that long? If you are developing some portion of the code, then run a subset of tests that directly relate to that code before you commit. Doesn't seem like a real problem.

WTF does this mean???

[PontifexPrimus]

Could we please get some explanatory links in here? This reads like a mix between a corporate nightmare ("harmful to our velocity"? SERIOUSLY?) and the rantings of an MMORPG nerd ("I was a level 72 ScrumMaster specced for Agility, but then they nerfed that and our Team Leads couldn't afford the new +5 leadership crafts, so we completely tanked at the Waterfalls of Development, even though we hired N00Bs as cannon fodder!").
Jargon, people! And don't chastise me for not RTFA - there is no FA to read!

Re:WTF does this mean???

[Mathiasdm]

Here you go :-)

And yes, you are absolutely right. I couldn't entirely understand the article either.

Re:WTF does this mean???

[slaker]

I recognized words that have meaning in English, but the person asking the question clearly had no intention or ability to combine those words into any language spoken by human beings.

Re:WTF does this mean???

[Junior J. Junior III]

Despite not understanding the article, the grandparent managed to translate it into mmorpg-speak pretty darn accurately. I'm not sure what to make of that, but I thought that was remarkable.

Re:WTF does this mean???

[stephanruby]

Could we please get some explanatory links in here?

While this is not my area of expertise, I think I can explain. His team leaders/scrotum masters are poor leaders. They don't seem to understand flexibility. He on the other hand, he thinks he understands flexibility. And he wants an intern to be the scrotum master.

The only part that I find confusing is that interns are usually the slaves, not the masters. Somehow, this guy thinks that a new slave can suddenly become a master just like that. That, I don't think so. So I'm either misunderstanding something, or this guy is missing the bigger picture. The issue that the team lead is overburdened is probably a very real problem, that I don't doubt. But it seems to me, this anonymous poster would just be trading one problem for another. An intern doesn't have the experience. An intern doesn't have the authority. One might as very well leave the scrotum alone if there is no one there that can handle it.

Re:WTF does this mean???

[Anonymous Coward]

Could we please get some explanatory links in here?

Slashdot has been trolled.
In fact, the whole article is written in gay BSDM porn jargon and has nothing to do with computers or programming.
If you want to know what a ScrumMaster is: imagine a half-naked fat hairy guy in black leather with studs. I don't want to go into the details on "interns", "Agile", "principal engineers" and worst of all "waterfall development mode". Really, goatse is like a meadow of beautiful flowers compared to this.

Re:WTF does this mean???

[marxz]

ditto on this... a random smattering of words combos only half of which would be counted as valid by my spellchecker. Also I would have thought a scrum was the last thing you needed in a work environment.. ... I mean I could live with the title "Loosehead prop" I could see my boss being happy with being called a "tighthead prop" but I can't see anyone in my current environment putting their hand up to have "hooker" as their job title.

Re:WTF does this mean???

[nickyandthefuture]

It's a post made by an idiot, full of buzzwords and fury, signifying nothing.

Re:WTF does this mean???

[Culture20]

Could we please get some explanatory links in here? This reads like a mix between a corporate nightmare ("harmful to our velocity"? SERIOUSLY?) and the rantings of an MMORPG nerd ("I was a level 72 ScrumMaster specced for Agility

It reminded me of EST-speak. Psychotic ramblings...

Re:WTF does this mean???

[Obyron]

It basically sounds like Scientology developed its own coding methodology. He was trying to do a sprint to burndown some backlog, but he got stuck in a process and got enturbulated, so he had to get the ScrumMaster to audit his code for engrams so he can make some big wins and move up the bridge. The best part is that under this system, you pay your boss to write code for him...

Try before you buy?

[El_Muerte_TDS]

I wish I could try this scrum in a safe environment, I need some sort of ScrumVM.

You're missing the problem

[91degrees]

A scrum master is not a manager. He's only mean to organise a handful of meetings and deal with impediments. These should not take any significant time.

Re:You're missing the problem

[FroMan]

This here is the problem.

The scrummaster (who should have learned this in his training) is a team member who's job is to organize the meetings and help "enforce" scrum practices. The scrummaster is not the product owner who sets direction for the team. The scrummaster is just another developer on the team.

In our implementation of scrum the scrummaster's only real job is the setup the meeting announcements. He is also usually the first one to reign us in during standup to keep the meeting to keep it short, though any of the team can mention to take it offline after the standup. Similarly with the planning, review, and retrospective meetings he'll usually be the first to remind everyone of the purpose of the meeting, but anyone on the team can do that.

In my view a scrummaster is only needed to get a scrum team started up to keep things on track instead of letting everything degrade into chaos. After an scrum team is up and running and into a good groove any member of the team can help provide scrummaster-ish direction.

Re:You're missing the problem

[Delkster]

No, just like GP said, a scrum master isn't a manager. Of course he can't decide to change the methodology since he isn't a leader with authority to make decisions like that. (Most likely questions like that aren't in the hands of the team either.)

If a scrum team is spending significant time in meetings because of "scrum", you aren't doing it properly. The daily meetings shouldn't take more than ~15 mins each. Yeah, it's easy to go over that if you start talking all kinds of unnecessary stuff in the meetings instead of being to the point, but it's part of the scrum master's responsibilities to take care that it doesn't happen.

Re:You're missing the problem

[Kristoph]

You suggest that a person with limited or no authority - or for that matter seniority - should take responsibility for telling his more senior peers to STFU.

In theory it makes perfect sense to appoint a junior person as ScrumMaster but, as with many things, there is a difference between theory and practice.

DTFT! (Define That Fucking Term!)

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, somebody add some wiki-links to the story posted here... Those of us that code for a living as contractors / corporate drones have little to no idea what the fuck you are talking about.

Guessing by context, I'd say that having your best coders become code-overlords who don't actually write code anymore is a bad idea.

Finding someone with people skills and management experience and appointing them as co-director of a project, with an uber-coder as his fellow co-director, is the way to go. Let the management guy handle HR and BS from the higher ups, and let the uber-coder handle developing the junior coders and explaining shit to the management guy. Just pay them the same.

Velociraptors

[Runaway1956]

"harmful to our velocity"

WTF is that supposed to mean? You're losing money, and you wish to lose money more rapidly? Or, you're not coding fast enough?

Sounds like one of those buzzwords. Did you buy that from the vendor, as well?

Re:Velociraptors

[arkhan_jg]

"harmful to our velocity"

WTF is that supposed to mean?

It's a scrum term; velocity is how much work a team can handle in a sprint (short development period to accomplish a particular goal or series of goals) - harmful to our velocity in scrum terms means - "we're not getting as much done as we would like".

To answer the original posters query; I've worked with scrum, and it sucks. It only works if people work together, are largely self-organising, and don't deliberately chuck roadblocks into other teams paths to get them off their own joblist. Oh, and if management can largely get out of the way and not constantly interfere with the process, i.e. unilaterally adding stuff to the burn-down chart in the middle of a sprint!

The scrummaster is more of a phb role than a senior engineer role; they basically need to have enough weight to stave off senior management interferance, moderate customer input, and have enough authority to crack the whip to developers who are slacking off. Definitely not an intern role. Whoever is the manager of your dev team, the manager who's on the next rung above your senior engineer are the ones who should be scrummaster; the ones that want status reports, talk to customers, and run interference between senior management desires and what your team can actually deliver; not your chief coder, certainly.

Re:Velociraptors

[teg]

"harmful to our velocity" WTF is that supposed to mean?

In Scrum, tasks/stories are estimated using a common metric (e.g. story points, hours, days). Velocity is the rate at which the team do these - e.g. "20 story points/day". If you're into Earned Value Management, you could see it as the rate at which EV increases. You can find an interesting paper about it here.

The problem for the original poster is that they just jumped onto a buzzword not really knowing what it is, and not utilizing it properly. There are no silver bullets. If the project is organized in a way that means the scrum master is doing project management, they need a real project manager - and definitely not an intern with little authority. That way lies disaster. If one of the senior developers want to change into project management and is doing it well, good - but then he is not a developer anymore, and should not be counted as a resource.

Re:Velociraptors

[Matthew Weigel]

I've worked with scrum, and it sucks. It only works if people work together, are largely self-organising, and don't deliberately chuck roadblocks into other teams paths to get them off their own joblist.

I believe the latter of those in particular gives away pretty bad organizational problems, scrum or no. They would probably manifest themselves just in a different way if you tried to do things different on the surface.

And a team that works together, is largely self-organizing, and doesn't deliberately screw other teams is worth its weight in gold without scrum, too.

You actually have to do it more or less properly for it to work.

No, you really don't. You need the other ingredients: a self-organizing team that works together and with the other groups in a company. You add scrum to that, you've got a great team. You add a few bits of scrum to that, you've got a great team. You add some standard corporate culture to that, you've got a great team. Are you seeing the pattern here?

I'm a big fan of a team following good processes (testing your work, gathering feedback, being realistic in schedules), I'm a big fan of a team being invested in their work, and I'm a big fan of open communication. Scrum argues for some of the same things, and it's good that these scrum proponents are arguing for all of these things. But you don't need a scrum master to get the good stuff, and I don't think scrum will turn a bad team into a good team - it will just turn a team that isn't doing scrum into a team that isn't doing scrum right.

Re:Velociraptors

[StrawberryFrog]

. Oh, and if management can largely get out of the way and not constantly interfere with the process, i.e. unilaterally adding stuff to the burn-down chart in the middle of a sprint!

You are aware of how strongly that is discouraged in scrum, right? Right? Your final option is stop the sprint and plan a new one with the new stuff prioritised in. (management gets to chose the priorities). If management consistently cannot business priorities stable until the end of sprints, well then your sprints are too long. If your sprints are already as short as they can go (1 week) and management still cannot keep priorities stable over that length of time, and cannot be taught to, then they are dickheads, and you should find new management to work for. Scrum cannot solve that problem, but it might make you face it a lot sooner.

"Our mis-implementation of Agile includes.."

[IainMH]

"Our mis-implementation of Agile includes.." ..is a pretty good idea for a ThinkGeek t-shirt.

Re:"Our mis-implementation of Agile includes.."

[Zontar The Mindless]

"... Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."

Sorry, I just couldn't help myself.

scrum, isn't that a rugby term?

[kamakazi]

For all the players putting their arms around eachother and kicking everyone else in the shins. At least that sounds like what the poster was talking about.

Yikes

[ShakaUVM]

"...seem to be completely unaware that this poor implementation of Agile development is harmful to our velocity"

Oh, for fucks sake...

I'll say this once:
Chop the little pointy horns of hair growing out of the side of your head, and get the fuck back to writing code, you stupid monkey.

Re:Yikes

[religious freak]

I think Warren Buffet said it best when he said "if you can't explain it in simple terms, you don't understand it". He said "young kids" (he's 80+, so who knows what he considers a young kid) come in pitching ideas using the fanciest of terms but when he asks for clarification, he can't get it, because they don't understand the fundamentals. And though it was a major pain in the ass, working at a helpdesk for a year taught me a lot because you NEED to distill things down to their core components and strip away all the crap. Stripping away crap == understanding fundamentals == true understanding. When you have a fundamental understanding, then you can add the bells and whistles

Honestly, it sounds to me like OP hiding behind lingo without actually understanding what's really going on. Yeah, he's saying something (and I understand it, I guess) but he's got so much crap, perhaps he can't see the forest from the trees.

PS. Scrum == worst. methodology. name. ever

Re:Yikes

[mokus000]

Sounds like we need a /. poll on this. Personally, I'd have to rate "Scrum" as a worse name than "Extreme Programming", though they're both way up there.

Re:Yikes

[mevets]

shhh! There are lots of jobs at stake here. The 'methodology of the month' is little different from the patent medicine scams of 100 years ago. Just smile and be glad you passed on that nice juicy worm. Next time, it might be you dangling from a hook.

!rugby

[IRoll11!s]

funniest tag on a post ever

View from the Dark Side

[Phloebas]

I do projects assurance work for a small development company. We have some very well-paid, highly skilled and extremely experienced developers, who occasionally are made Team Leads. This means they have to do project governance. We use PRINCE2, which is far less-suited to software development, and there is a definite problem going on here.

It immediately cuts the time these developers can spend doing actual project work - something they grouse about constantly. On the other hand, we also have an army of young first- or second-year analysts, all of whom embrace our governance, and generally perform the project administration side of things far better than their more-experienced colleagues.

On the other other hand, I have noticed that the younger consultants lack the project experience to plan creatively and come up with ways to make the process work for them. They would if they could, while the older ones can but couldn't be asked. I fear that over time the negative attitude towards governance that lingers from the older generation will infect the new guys.

Our company recruits annually, and is always running a number of internal projects. What I advocate is that the new consultants spend a while running small internal initiatives during part of their time, and then spend their second year as the administrators on client projects, before being able to "earn" not having to worry so much about all the extra overhead that comes with that sort of thing. It might also help with retaining experienced staff.

Re:View from the Dark Side

[Anonymous Coward]

"Governance" what the hell does that mean? Does every project need a governor to slow the velocity??? Or perhaps it means a governor, as in the executive branch of a state. From what I can tell this is another nebulous peace of corporate jargon managers use to justify their existence without anyone really understanding what the term means or everyone has a different understanding of the meaning because it is so vague.

Clearly a targetted post:

[BluePojo]

If you work on an agile dev team, this post uses every day language. (yeah, velocity is not an unusual word when referring to backlog burndown rate :D) If you're just an enthusiast or work in IT, this post is crazy off the wall nuts.

At any rate, to respond to the post:

The best method of handling who is the scrum master I have encountered is by not giving the job to one single person. A rotation every 4 sprints seems to work well (we do 2 week sprints), as it spreads the load of scrum master around and it keeps us from getting into a rut when doing sprint planning and retrospectives, as a different person is running it every 2 months. You're right that giving your strongest developer the task of scrum master is asking to have your strongest developer not code as much, but if you have your intern running scrum, you may find that lack of understanding of prioritization will impact your velocity quite a lot more than giving extra work to your lead.

One additional thing to note is how efficient you are in scrum master tasks... if you're hand writing stickies to put on the scrum board, you're probably wasting time. Any half decent script monkey should be able to write a script to parse your backlog and generate stickies for you. :)

Re:Clearly a targetted post:

[Dachannien]

Bingo, sir.

Re:Clearly a targetted post:

[RedBear]

[T]his post is crazy off the wall nuts.

There. Fixed that for ya. That should have been the entirety if your post.

This article/post contains the most ridiculous joke-like conglomeration of pointlessly obscure buzzword phrases that I have ever seen in my ENTIRE LIFE. This includes all of the actual jokes I've heard where someone has purposefully tried to put together as many idiotic buzzwords as possible for comedic effect. This post tops them all and the poster is actually serious and works in an apparently serious section of the computing industry where other people apparently use these terms without being a member of the cast of SNL.

Talk about insanity. There is no possible way that any group of people using this kind of nonsense language could create reliable software. Good LORD, people. Get a GRIP and get back to proper software design and coding. And take an English class.

To parent: If your organization is successfully producing quality software at a decent clip it is only because you have good coders and a workable organizational structure that adapts to long-term needs, like changing the project lead every couple of months and keeping task lists short and manageable. You don't make decent code merely by using this monkey language of nonsense words to describe your process. We have a perfectly good set of millions of words in the English language, many of which are applicable to describing any form of process methodology you care to use. There is no need for the waving of hands and making up of new words out of thin air. Leave that to the flim-flam artists you are in grave danger of becoming confused with.

Agile

[Frankie70]

In my opinion, Agile is a great tool for managers, not developers.
Every manager in the end wants to ask for status reports every day.
But they can't do so, because people working for them will be upset.
Agile is an excellent way for Managers to ask for status reports
everyday.

In my opinion, TDD (test driven developement) is the only good thing
about Agile.

Here is Scott Adams about Agile.
http://www.globalnerdy.com/2007/11/28/dilbert-on-extreme-and-agile-programming/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cote/63914774/

Re:Agile

[wurp]

I think the best thing about Agile is TDD, but it's not the only good thing...

TDD is far better if your tests are written to emulate a user using the features they care about. That's a User Story focus, which is explicit in Agile.

TDD enables you to refactor mercilessly, which Agile points out and encourages.

Not related to TDD - Planning Poker as an estimation process gives the developers a stake in estimation, which gives them a feeling of responsibility for being done on time, which keeps them motivated to get done quickly while working their task. The actual estimate gives them a stretch goal to strive for, then the adjusted estimate (using the team's velocity) gives them a realistic goal, and lets them know when to start being worried that they're going too slow.

Personally, I find it very motivating to have a time goal for a task that I helped set, and to know both how I'm tracking against my ideal estimate and against the realistic, adjusted estimate.

In Agile, you should only be tracking completed sets of features that the end-user cares about when you estimate progress. This helps you track your real progress, as opposed to the typical "80% done" forever state you end up in with seat-of-the-pants estimates of progress.

Focusing on reasonably short sprints (usually two weeks) and strictly disallowing changing the workset during those sprints helps you stay focused on something long enough to actually get it done. It helps keep managers from fucking everything up by changing your focus every few days.

A very short, targeted "what I did, what I'm doing, and what's holding me back" meeting with only developers helps keep developers focused on getting done, lets people see when they have special knowledge that can make someone else's task easier, and keeps everyone aware of (and hopefully focused on fixing) any impediments.

Yes, most of these things are obvious, and many developers left to their own devices will mostly do them. However, having a plan that focuses on things that everyone can agree are important to do a good job is obviously better than flying "seat of the pants", and developers aren't left to their own devices - managers interfere, and finally, managers like methodologies.

Obviously, a methodology is a way to keep you doing things you think are smart. If conditions arise where the methodology tells you to do obviously wrong things (or not to do obviously right things), you diverge from the methodology. If the company sells the division you were writing some feature for on this sprint, you should probably abandon the sprint. Etc.

A methodology is not a replacement for brains, but it's a nice augmentation.

What the hell?

[Godji]

What the fuck is a ScrumMaster? What the fuck is this person asking? Seriously, how did this get in my RSS reader?

Re:What the hell?

[CaroKann]

A ScrumMaster is like a BrewMaster, except that instead of having mastered the making of brew, you have mastered the making of scrum.

Re:Yes, use experts as scrum masters

[cyber-vandal]

Well done, you've just managed to be even more confusing than the original article.

Long standing agile developer

[intranation]

Seems to me there are a few issues here:

• The team leads as scrum masters is a conflict of interest. Managers should never be scrum masters, as often scrum masters need to go against management in order to get the team through blockers. Additionally, they can put undue ("you report to me") pressure on team members during scrum. That balance needs to be maintained;
• Scrum masters, if picked from the development team, should be rotated to avoid keeping people out of the loop; but
• Ideally they should be someone who is from a project management background. If you're doing agile a lot you'll want a dedicated scrum master. I never really bought into the idea that developers should be scrum mastersâ"they should just be trained in the right skills so they know how it works, but their core skills are unlikely to be organising people.

If your company is "doing it right" you can raise these issues in the retrospective and hope they get picked up. If they're not doing or respecting retrospectives then they're doing it wrong, and all bets are off.

Re:Long standing agile developer

[Ash Vince]

Managers should never be scrum masters, as often scrum masters need to go against management in order to get the team through blockers.

In management terms this is called managing up, it is the hardest but most important part of being a manager as it involves convincing people on merit alone. Managing down is easy as the people under you have to do what they are told as you set their wages and are ultimately reponsible for their continued employment. Managing up often means going to bat for the team and explaining to upper management why things need to be done a certain way to succeed, even if they do not want to have it done that way. Just because someone has a job title of developement manager does not mean they always have to take upper managements point of view.

In short, a good manager can go against his own management above him in order to get the team through blockers. They will probably not do it in front of junior staff though as this undermines confidence in upper management. Management might appear to be a united front, but that is just an appearance to those who are at the bottom of the ladder.

When you cut through all the gibberish

[petes_PoV]

You've got a development team. The senior members have been promoted to team leaders.

No matter how you want to spin this, or wrap it up with neologisms, it's the same old stuff, with the same old problems and (it seems) the same old organisation - just with different names. In the end you (or your team / scrum call it what you will) still has ti turn out a product. Those who help get the praise, those who hinder get the promotions :-(

Just like every development methodology before it - and no doubt, the ones to come - if you have talented people, they'll get the work done. If you have indolent people, no techniques: agile or not, will help you. Stop worrying about scrums, roles and all that malarkey - get on with the job of developing your product.

Everyone in a company has problems to overcome. How you deal with them is the olny measure of your worth.

Re:Yes, use experts as scrum masters

[Delkster]

I conclude that the top people should be the scrum masters, because if you bring in someone inexperienced to be a scrum master (i.e. a project manager), all your projects will go to pot.

I agree that a scrum master should have experience of project work, but he doesn't necessarily need to be a top developer. Also, a scrum master isn't technically just another name for a project manager. A scrum master doesn't make decisions; he's basically someone who makes sure that the team doesn't have to waste their time on unnecessary problems ("impediments") and that the whole thing doesn't break down into chaos.

Can't do your testing because of some network problem? Or you aren't exactly sure about a detail of the requirements? Bring that up in the scrum meeting and the scrum master should solve your problem so you don't have to interrupt your work because the scrum master will run the errand for you.

Did a meeting break down into an argument between two team members about an implementation detail? It's the scrum master's job to intervene and get the issue solved between the two rather than needlessly waste everyone's time in the meeting.

Got a design issue and you have to decide which approach to take? That's not up for the scrum master to decide. The decision should be made by team concensus, or if they don't have the expertise to decide, get help from an actual manager or expert from outside of the team (architect, or what you have).

I would recommend seriously reconsidering whether getting a better pipeline of events and allowing work to stretch past 'daily scrums' would be better.

I don't know exactly what you mean to say, but I think you've misunderstood something. A daily scrum is more of a status meeting. It doesn't mean that you have to switch tasks as a result of each meeting, though it would be good to have tasks divided into small enough chunks that you can usually complete them within a day or two.

Stacked slang

[erroneus]

I had to do deeper background research just to read the article and have it make any sense.

My flash impression was that Agile and Scrum were products of some sort and I was also a bit confused by the name as I have no real knowledge of rugby and never had any familiarity with the term before now. Some googling led me to some references that explained a lot of things but left more questions... "pigs"? Why? "Because their bacon is on the line!" What the hell?! "Bacon" meaning what? Their asses? Why can't people simply say what they mean? Are they so bored with their language that they have to play such games? Learn a foreign language for god's sake! Stop twisting and convoluting a standard and common language to the point that outsiders can't know what is being discussed. A little slang here and there can be forgiven as context typically lends and hand in assisting people to understand what is meant. But slang upon slang mixed with highly regional sports terminology? I suspect if American football terms were used instead, it would be perfectly understandable for people like me, but to the rest of the world would be just as meaningless and confusing.

The process itself is confusing as it departs from natural hierarchical management structures that have existed throughout the history of animal behavior and asserts the notion of a team sport, which is well known for its danger and potential for injury. I'm beginning to see why more modern software is buggier than older software. With so much focus on "completion" over careful engineering, a lot of details get missed along the way. I wonder if the people who support these methods would feel okay if their next car was patched together using bailing wire and duct tape?

Buzzword Bingo

[Attila Dimedici]

Dagnabit, all I needed was "will implement in the cloud" for Bingo.

Oh, for fckn, sake...

[KZigurs]

Forget all about agile, forget all about scrum and forget all about management. The only places where I have seen some good code actually being written are the places where there were no 'process', there were no 'evangelists' and it was absolutely normal for managers and devs to swap roles in who is managing who - naturally.
No process will improve on a (welcomed) shout across the room and reply coming back in 5 seconds.

The answer is obvious...

[meburke]

A problem is defined by the difference between the way things are and they way you want them to be. You have not adequately defined the problem, or problems, here. This seems to be common among "Agile development" aficionados, and particularly in the case of SCRUM (which accepts as a given that the requirements are not complete before starting on the project).

The two things that usually help straighten out this type of mess: First, a business-case justification for the project. This means that if the project is not useful it isn't implemented. Need to learn how to make a good business case for a project and/or a solution? A good place to start is the book, "businessThink" by Marcum, Smith and Khalsa http://www.amazon.com/businessThink-Rules-Getting-Right%C2%96Now-Matter/dp/0471219932 .

The second is as complete a list of FUNCTIONAL requirements as possible. And remember, each functional requirement is subject to the same case analysis as the whole project. (Re-read "businessThink".)

I get a sense from your post that you are not in a position to initiate any action, and your role is to criticize and whine. Don't. If you can adequately describe the difference between the way things are and the way they ought to be, then someone with authority will listen to you.

Good luck.

Re:The answer is obvious...

[StrawberryFrog]

The second is as complete a list of FUNCTIONAL requirements as possible.

Scrum explicitly rejects the idea that this is a useful way to spend time. Complete requirements may not be possible, may not be feasible with limited effort, and will most likely change over time.

Instead it advocates getting enough high-priority requirements written down to get you going, and getting the most-desired part of the system done (as much as can be done in a "sprint", a week to a month), and iterating with the next most important item. Not only does this deal with change, it allows new requirements to be uncovered in an orderly way rather than causing a conceptual train wreck ("but the functional requirements are done"), it allows value to be taken from the existing software as soon as possible, and design flaws (e.g. "system does everything we want, but doesn't scale past 100 users") to be uncovered and corrected much earlier.

question...

[buddyglass]

...harmful to our velocity...

Did it impact your speed or direction?

Re: Scrum?

[petes_PoV]

It's a term in Rugby Football (like american football, but without all the protection, padding etc. i.e. for _real_ men). The term is used when 8 of the players from each side, in a 3 - 4 - 1 formation, bend down in a roughly circular pattern. The two at the front sides from each team support the "hooker" who' job it is to get the ball backwards (hooking it with his foot) to his own team.

Meanwhile all the other members of his side of the scrum, try surreptitiously to beat up the other team - under cover of the "scrum", without the referee noticing. It's a very physical, bruising way of achieving possession, but an art form to get right.

On agile programming, it's roughly the same - except there's no ball and no referee - and there aren't really teams - everyone's looking out for themselves.

It's like AD&D

[Spazmania]

It's like Dungeons and Dragons. Follow the rules too rigidly and you're so busy rolling dice that nobody has any fun.

The Mythical Man Month anyone?

[Temujin_12]

My boss, one of the best developers on my team, now has about 1/4 to 1/8 of the time he used to have to write code. I've found that I've had to step it up and take charge of a lot more work (which has been a great growing experience for me) since he's going to meetings every 30 min. to an hour.

All I can say is that some people seriously need to read The Mythical Man Month.

On a somewhat of a side note, I think too many institutions (college or trade) simply don't effectively teach (or don't teach at all) industry best practices such as:
    -source control - every project you do in school should have to use source control
    -build scripts - rather than turning in a binary, graders should checkout your code from your source control and be able to build and/or run it in one step
    -bug fixing - project deadlines should be in phases where you are given a certain number of times you can have your program reviewed by others (TA's or other students) and bugs submitted against your, or your team's, bug database
    -team work - once you get past the weeder courses a lot more work should be team work. If you are having your students use source control and a bug database, the graders and professor can easily see who did what and what the dynamics of the team were (if any). I'd say you could even go further (if it logistically made sense) and tell students to use an email system for the class for communication with their team about the project. Then these emails could be part of the grade since they are being graded on teamwork. Plus, having teams would mean projects could be bigger and more rewarding (ie: fulfilling to see run)
    -documentation - for team projects, provide a wiki for each team to document what they are doing and communicate

Universities or trade schools are doing their graduates a disservice by sending them into the real worlds without experience in these areas.

Doesn't improve everything, but are benefits

[Webcommando]

I've lead scrum projects for a few years (actually introduced the technique to a few). It is a great tool but hardly is a silver bullet. Over time, there are tweaks needed to meet organization style and needs--including the kinds of products, release standards, regulatory environment. If you try to use as-is I think you'll find issues and ultimately fail.

I think scrum has some very nice characteristics (not necessarily unique to scrum):

- Lessons developer stress by allowing them to focus. You define the work for a sprint up-front and the developer knows their stories and can attack them as necessary. Everyone knows the stories and tasks (they are in your face..either in a tool, on a white board, stickies on the wall, whatever) and can trade or help as needed.
- Helps drive results of working software. With the sprint concept, the team is expected to demonstrate the work product each cycle (3-5 weeks). This doesn't have to be software but you have to be able to show something specific. I think this helps eliminate the month long development grinds only to find nothing works right when integrated.
- Gets the developers talking. The stand-up meeting (what is done yesterday, what is planned for today, what help is need) is very valuable to get the developers interacting. Very easy for software people to sit for long periods banging out code and banging their head against the wall. The daily meeting helps to uncover duplicate effort, solutions to problems, and allow an opportunity for senior developer to recognize where people are struggling.

Just remember: scrum isn't an excuse to code first, design later or ignore gathering detailed and real requirements (a story isn't enough).

Re:DTFT! (Define That Fucking Term!)

[LizardKing]

I'd point out the successful projects on my CV, and then point out that they were all accomplished using common sense - not some bullshit laden methodology of the week. My "methodogy" if you can call it that? KISS.

Agile is much more then Scrum

[AgileMike]

Hey Guys I've been working on a software company that uses Agile Methodologies for software development for more than 8 years now. And let me tell you something about Agile and Scrum, for those that didn't get the full grasp of the concepts: Agile is a software development methodology that focus on iterations to rapidly getting working software, over process, tools and extensively comprehensive documentation, and also focus on the end users feedback during the software development iterations of the working software, to respond much faster, and within budget, to changes. This is a very short description of the Agile Manifesto that you can find on the web. The benefits of the Agile Methodology is not for manager to keep track of the coders productivity and control team or individual KPIs, but to focus on what it's important: to get working software that responds to the market/business or end users real needs. So instead of having a full and comprehensive 200 pages requirement's document at the beginning of the project, and take 1y and a half to deliver the first running version, you get a smaller and lighter version of the overall requirements, and present smaller working demos of the software every 2 weeks or 3 weeks, giving the change of the end users and the business itself provide their feedback, allowing to change the application in the next iterations, and with new requirements that usually didn't match the 200 page requirements document of the beginning of the project afterall. Regarding Scrum, Agile Software Development Methodologies is much more than just a 10 to 15 minutes scrum of the ongoing work. Scrum should be a very short status meeting to address how to overcome technical difficulties from the current iteration, and not just present a "how the project is going" report to managers. The Scrum Master is not necessarily a manager, but usually, due to it's experience, can also be a team leader. But it's main role in a Scrum is to drive the scrum, and focuses it to what's really important for that iteration to guarantee that all developers are aligned an on scheduled for the working (demo) software version. Usually, in the scrum, the Scrum Master shouldn't care if the developer has been coding fast or not, but he needs to provide immediate decisions or action items to address any presented problem. And even though this is definitely all about programming, adopting Agile Methodologies must be wide spread throughout at least the team using the methodology, but in the end, for the entire company R&D. In this blog there's also more information on the basic steps that a company should take to adopt the Agile Methodology, a concrete approach for Enterprise Rich Web Applications Using Agile Web Methodologies. In the end, the team or company, doesn't necessary needs to adopt all sets or rules and guidelines of the Agile Methodology. Like the methodology it self, it can be an iterative and ongoing process. Cheers

Scrum master = Project manager!!!!!

[node159]

Scrum master = Project manager!!!!!

Scrum master is a fancy word for project manager! If people start realizing this you wouldnâ(TM)t have the shit that the poster mentioned going on. Who in their right mind would make their technical lead or an intern a project manager...

Re:Scrum master = Project manager!!!!!

[Zenin]

If your Scrum Master looks anything like a traditional Project Manager then you're doing it (very, very) wrong.

It's a very different role. There is no directly mapping role of Project Manager in the Scrum method as the responsibilities of a traditional PM are split across the Scrum Master (facilitator and process enforcer/advocate), the Project Owner (project direction, task priority, release planning), and the Team (accountability, communication).

Google Tech Talk about Scrum from Ken Schwaber

[file_reaper]

Here's the Google Techtalk, for those like me who have no idea of what Scrum is...

Scrum et al on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyNPeTn8fpo

Cheers,

flamebait?

[Gary W. Longsine]

Like the entire discussion isn't flamebait. Moderator, I challenge you to enter into a discussion with me regarding the management of software development teams, and Agile methodologies. Obviously you are not aware that the first practice of nearly every agile methodology is assembling a competent team. Agile methods specifically reject the notion that you can take random people and assemble a team to develop software efficiency. The person who submitted the original discussion topic doesn't show many signs of being an appropriate member of an agile team. I'd fire him, first.

No love for Agile and scrum on slashdot?

[StrawberryFrog]

I'm not exactly feeling a lot of love for scrum and agile in these comments. Agile was created to manage change in large software projects. So if you don't use agile methods, what do you use on large projects - some kind of waterfall process? Prince2? Good old "sit down and start coding"? How does that work for you? What is the bug rate? What percentage of these projects actually make it into production?

Also, when did the slashdot crowd become so aggressively ignorant, hostile to new ideas?