SCRUM Pit
-
I'm on contract and go to a customer's location three days a week. Today, they expanded the team so we can't fit around a conference room. Many of us hoped that we could move back to our office and work in a quite environment. Instead, the client decided to put us in a "SCRUM Pit". The only thing it has done is magnified the aspects of the environment that we don't like. Its louder and provides more interruptions. Even better, it wasn't set up when we got here. I spent my first hour moving tables, chairs, power cords. I'm living SCRUM out of a text book :( Has anybody had a positive experience with a SCRUM Pit? If so, how long were you in the environment. Hogan
The first rule of the Scrum Pit is you don't talk about the Scrum Pit.
This space intentionally left blank.
-
I'm on contract and go to a customer's location three days a week. Today, they expanded the team so we can't fit around a conference room. Many of us hoped that we could move back to our office and work in a quite environment. Instead, the client decided to put us in a "SCRUM Pit". The only thing it has done is magnified the aspects of the environment that we don't like. Its louder and provides more interruptions. Even better, it wasn't set up when we got here. I spent my first hour moving tables, chairs, power cords. I'm living SCRUM out of a text book :( Has anybody had a positive experience with a SCRUM Pit? If so, how long were you in the environment. Hogan
I hate stuff like that. It's BS and only lowers productivity... Can't understand why management doesn't understand that you need peace and quiet when working as a programmer... :doh:
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
-----
The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
-----
I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time -
I'm on contract and go to a customer's location three days a week. Today, they expanded the team so we can't fit around a conference room. Many of us hoped that we could move back to our office and work in a quite environment. Instead, the client decided to put us in a "SCRUM Pit". The only thing it has done is magnified the aspects of the environment that we don't like. Its louder and provides more interruptions. Even better, it wasn't set up when we got here. I spent my first hour moving tables, chairs, power cords. I'm living SCRUM out of a text book :( Has anybody had a positive experience with a SCRUM Pit? If so, how long were you in the environment. Hogan
That seems closer to a ruck[^] or maybe even a rolling maul [^] than a scrum.
-
I hate stuff like that. It's BS and only lowers productivity... Can't understand why management doesn't understand that you need peace and quiet when working as a programmer... :doh:
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
-----
The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
-----
I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time -
Yeah, but that's your choice... Wear your headphones like a good boy... ;)
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
-----
The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
-----
I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time -
Face + Palm, SCRUM = management fad in my view! something that worked in one situation applied to all does not always work... it's like when I'm coding or building electronics at home TV/HiFi in the back ground, place I was at before we had Radio 1 (?) BLASTING all day. Couldn't get any work done at all. If it works once it shouldn't be applied every where! :rolleyes:
You know you've moved up the ladder when you don't need attend one of those scum meetings (And having be Agile+Standup) ... you ever see a board member be Agile? They aren't. Because management only give instructions. Only foot soldiers need be agile and having to report what they done & failed everyday, in a SCUM meeting!
-
You know you've moved up the ladder when you don't need attend one of those scum meetings (And having be Agile+Standup) ... you ever see a board member be Agile? They aren't. Because management only give instructions. Only foot soldiers need be agile and having to report what they done & failed everyday, in a SCUM meeting!
-
I'm on contract and go to a customer's location three days a week. Today, they expanded the team so we can't fit around a conference room. Many of us hoped that we could move back to our office and work in a quite environment. Instead, the client decided to put us in a "SCRUM Pit". The only thing it has done is magnified the aspects of the environment that we don't like. Its louder and provides more interruptions. Even better, it wasn't set up when we got here. I spent my first hour moving tables, chairs, power cords. I'm living SCRUM out of a text book :( Has anybody had a positive experience with a SCRUM Pit? If so, how long were you in the environment. Hogan
I'm being dragged into SCRUM as well. My first manager here had one weekly phone call status meeting. My new manager has 3 SCRUMs a week (MWF). Plus every other week I get to have an additional one on one meeting with him. How much will have changed between 3:30 PM Friday afternoon (my one on one meeting time) and 10:00 AM Monday morning? Currently I have my own cube but I'm losing that in the next week or so to move to a communal area. Where am I supposed to put all the stuff I have accumulated over 20 years in programming when I all the area I will have is 2 little wedge shaped tables? How am I supposed to secure my belongings with no drawers much less ones that lock. The first thing I'm going to be getting is one of those science fair tri-boards to put on my desk. Until last week we had the ability to work remotely 2 days a week, now it's 5 days in the office. A dictate sent down by a guy who works in a completely different city. I was just getting used to using SalesForce to manage my projects and time reporting but now I get to use PivotalTracker for project comments and updates and Freckle for time reporting. But I still have to respond to SalesForce because other departments can't see our PivotalTracker. We also had to move our code repository over to Git from a well established Subversion system because the people he was over were already using Git. Excuse me now, I'm going for a walk about before I start throwing things.
-
I'm on contract and go to a customer's location three days a week. Today, they expanded the team so we can't fit around a conference room. Many of us hoped that we could move back to our office and work in a quite environment. Instead, the client decided to put us in a "SCRUM Pit". The only thing it has done is magnified the aspects of the environment that we don't like. Its louder and provides more interruptions. Even better, it wasn't set up when we got here. I spent my first hour moving tables, chairs, power cords. I'm living SCRUM out of a text book :( Has anybody had a positive experience with a SCRUM Pit? If so, how long were you in the environment. Hogan
If
snorkie wrote:
they expanded the team so we can't fit around a conference room
... then you aren't doing Scrum or any form of agile any more. A team of that size can't operate on the same level of interaction and giving you a bigger room for standup won't stop that from being the case. Agile is for small* teams, management's job is to organise the people available to them into teams of appropriate sizes working on appropriately scaled problems, and find appropriate product owners² so that an agile approach within each team can work successfully. *: Varies depending on sector and the style of your business and people, but 'fits round a table' is a good rule of thumb. In my company we have teams of typically 4 or so and things work well. ²: One of my least favourite pieces of terminology in agile. The product owner does not own the product, necessarily, and he isn't even necessarily asked about the details product. He's more of a domain expert or prospective end user, generally.
-
I'm on contract and go to a customer's location three days a week. Today, they expanded the team so we can't fit around a conference room. Many of us hoped that we could move back to our office and work in a quite environment. Instead, the client decided to put us in a "SCRUM Pit". The only thing it has done is magnified the aspects of the environment that we don't like. Its louder and provides more interruptions. Even better, it wasn't set up when we got here. I spent my first hour moving tables, chairs, power cords. I'm living SCRUM out of a text book :( Has anybody had a positive experience with a SCRUM Pit? If so, how long were you in the environment. Hogan
You may have misheard him?
-
If
snorkie wrote:
they expanded the team so we can't fit around a conference room
... then you aren't doing Scrum or any form of agile any more. A team of that size can't operate on the same level of interaction and giving you a bigger room for standup won't stop that from being the case. Agile is for small* teams, management's job is to organise the people available to them into teams of appropriate sizes working on appropriately scaled problems, and find appropriate product owners² so that an agile approach within each team can work successfully. *: Varies depending on sector and the style of your business and people, but 'fits round a table' is a good rule of thumb. In my company we have teams of typically 4 or so and things work well. ²: One of my least favourite pieces of terminology in agile. The product owner does not own the product, necessarily, and he isn't even necessarily asked about the details product. He's more of a domain expert or prospective end user, generally.
-
If
snorkie wrote:
they expanded the team so we can't fit around a conference room
... then you aren't doing Scrum or any form of agile any more. A team of that size can't operate on the same level of interaction and giving you a bigger room for standup won't stop that from being the case. Agile is for small* teams, management's job is to organise the people available to them into teams of appropriate sizes working on appropriately scaled problems, and find appropriate product owners² so that an agile approach within each team can work successfully. *: Varies depending on sector and the style of your business and people, but 'fits round a table' is a good rule of thumb. In my company we have teams of typically 4 or so and things work well. ²: One of my least favourite pieces of terminology in agile. The product owner does not own the product, necessarily, and he isn't even necessarily asked about the details product. He's more of a domain expert or prospective end user, generally.
BobJanova wrote:
'fits round a table' is a good rule of thumb. In my company we have teams of typically 4 or so and things work well.
Yes, I've heard it stated as "3 - 9 or 6 +/- 3" . Now don't get all nerdy on me and try to exevaluate that as one expression. :sigh:
This space intentionally left blank.
-
I'm on contract and go to a customer's location three days a week. Today, they expanded the team so we can't fit around a conference room. Many of us hoped that we could move back to our office and work in a quite environment. Instead, the client decided to put us in a "SCRUM Pit". The only thing it has done is magnified the aspects of the environment that we don't like. Its louder and provides more interruptions. Even better, it wasn't set up when we got here. I spent my first hour moving tables, chairs, power cords. I'm living SCRUM out of a text book :( Has anybody had a positive experience with a SCRUM Pit? If so, how long were you in the environment. Hogan
Count yourself lucky. I almost got a job where I'd have all that plus 'pair programming'. Do I have to share my juice box as well? And wear shorts? Seriously, this sh!t was thought up by some variety of creep with low-level cunning instead of intelligence, because they hate anybody who can think for themselves. That's all. Everything else is bs designed to con gullible managers into smuggling it into our lives on their behalf while they take the fee and snigger up their sleeves all the way to the bank. 1984 was a warning, not an instruction manual.:mad:
-
Count yourself lucky. I almost got a job where I'd have all that plus 'pair programming'. Do I have to share my juice box as well? And wear shorts? Seriously, this sh!t was thought up by some variety of creep with low-level cunning instead of intelligence, because they hate anybody who can think for themselves. That's all. Everything else is bs designed to con gullible managers into smuggling it into our lives on their behalf while they take the fee and snigger up their sleeves all the way to the bank. 1984 was a warning, not an instruction manual.:mad:
Doesn't it smell rotten :doh: X| in there?
-
I'm on contract and go to a customer's location three days a week. Today, they expanded the team so we can't fit around a conference room. Many of us hoped that we could move back to our office and work in a quite environment. Instead, the client decided to put us in a "SCRUM Pit". The only thing it has done is magnified the aspects of the environment that we don't like. Its louder and provides more interruptions. Even better, it wasn't set up when we got here. I spent my first hour moving tables, chairs, power cords. I'm living SCRUM out of a text book :( Has anybody had a positive experience with a SCRUM Pit? If so, how long were you in the environment. Hogan
Pretty much sounds like a labour camp to me. Are you in North Korea?
-
I'm on contract and go to a customer's location three days a week. Today, they expanded the team so we can't fit around a conference room. Many of us hoped that we could move back to our office and work in a quite environment. Instead, the client decided to put us in a "SCRUM Pit". The only thing it has done is magnified the aspects of the environment that we don't like. Its louder and provides more interruptions. Even better, it wasn't set up when we got here. I spent my first hour moving tables, chairs, power cords. I'm living SCRUM out of a text book :( Has anybody had a positive experience with a SCRUM Pit? If so, how long were you in the environment. Hogan
SCRUM is so last decade. All the cool kids are doing Kanban[^] now. It's Agile, Jim - but not as you know it.
Anna :rose: Tech Blog | Visual Lint "Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"
-
I'm being dragged into SCRUM as well. My first manager here had one weekly phone call status meeting. My new manager has 3 SCRUMs a week (MWF). Plus every other week I get to have an additional one on one meeting with him. How much will have changed between 3:30 PM Friday afternoon (my one on one meeting time) and 10:00 AM Monday morning? Currently I have my own cube but I'm losing that in the next week or so to move to a communal area. Where am I supposed to put all the stuff I have accumulated over 20 years in programming when I all the area I will have is 2 little wedge shaped tables? How am I supposed to secure my belongings with no drawers much less ones that lock. The first thing I'm going to be getting is one of those science fair tri-boards to put on my desk. Until last week we had the ability to work remotely 2 days a week, now it's 5 days in the office. A dictate sent down by a guy who works in a completely different city. I was just getting used to using SalesForce to manage my projects and time reporting but now I get to use PivotalTracker for project comments and updates and Freckle for time reporting. But I still have to respond to SalesForce because other departments can't see our PivotalTracker. We also had to move our code repository over to Git from a well established Subversion system because the people he was over were already using Git. Excuse me now, I'm going for a walk about before I start throwing things.
I feel your pain. The code is open source not open plan.
I may not last forever but the mess I leave behind certainly will.
-
I'm on contract and go to a customer's location three days a week. Today, they expanded the team so we can't fit around a conference room. Many of us hoped that we could move back to our office and work in a quite environment. Instead, the client decided to put us in a "SCRUM Pit". The only thing it has done is magnified the aspects of the environment that we don't like. Its louder and provides more interruptions. Even better, it wasn't set up when we got here. I spent my first hour moving tables, chairs, power cords. I'm living SCRUM out of a text book :( Has anybody had a positive experience with a SCRUM Pit? If so, how long were you in the environment. Hogan
Is a SCRUM pit anything like this? http://www.rfu.com/takingpart/coach/irb_law_directives/scrum_engagement_good[^]
-
I'm on contract and go to a customer's location three days a week. Today, they expanded the team so we can't fit around a conference room. Many of us hoped that we could move back to our office and work in a quite environment. Instead, the client decided to put us in a "SCRUM Pit". The only thing it has done is magnified the aspects of the environment that we don't like. Its louder and provides more interruptions. Even better, it wasn't set up when we got here. I spent my first hour moving tables, chairs, power cords. I'm living SCRUM out of a text book :( Has anybody had a positive experience with a SCRUM Pit? If so, how long were you in the environment. Hogan
Long, long ago (1973), at a company that's blessedly vanished from this mortal plane.
Managements typically don't want to admit to certain facts:
- That engineers are not interchangeable modules;
- That engineers require conditions conducive to concentration;
- That engineers' work cannot be (and therefore must not be) scheduled;
- That engineers are habitually appreciation-deprived, and over time will come to resent it;
- That a dress code for engineers who never face a customer is patent idiocy that impedes productivity;
- That an engineer whose head is lolling back and whose feet are up on his desk is probably hard at work and should not be disturbed.
In short, managements tend to assume that what we do is indistinguishable from the day laborers Frederick Taylor observed for his time-and-motion studies. Those that learn better sometimes survive their earlier follies; the rest have sown the wind and reap the whirlwind.
Indeed, it sometimes gets infinitely worse. A true story: I happen to be a practicing Catholic. One fine day about thirty years ago, during my company-designated lunch hour, I was silently praying the Rosary, beads in my hand, when a manager came to my cubicle and loudly demanded that I "quit that nonsense" and attend to something he had thought up a few minutes earlier.
I'm still not certain why I let him live.
Why so many engineers yearn to enter management is something I'll never understand.
(This message is programming you in ways you cannot detect. Be afraid.)