[cechner]

Scrum proponents (a label I would tentatively apply to myself) would tell you that 'you're doing it wrong' but unfortunately a point-by-point reply to this article would detract from the general problem here: Scrum is intended to be the straightest line towards measuring your real progress on a project, and not much else

If youre working on a project where it is important that you have as-accurate-as-is-realistic an idea of the size of the project, or more specifically your progress through that project, then I can't see how a methodology could be any simpler.

If having a good idea of the size of your project over time and your progress through that project are not very important from a management perspective, the Scrum artefacts will seem like, and will probably in fact be, needless overhead.

Scrum is not opinionated about the actual development methodology so claims about how it affects the code that is written are themselves a bad smell IMO.

[humanrebar]

> Scrum is not opinionated about the actual development methodology so claims about how it affects the code that is written are themselves a bad smell IMO.

Scrum is actually part of the problem, IMO. I've seen many teams turn scrum into a hammer and treat all future problems as nails.

Example problem: The foobar story has failed failed for the third sprint in a row.

Likely discussed in retrospective (plausibly good ideas, mind you):

- We need to break down stories more before we estimate them.

- Or we need to stop underestimating foobar stories.

- Or we need to focus on unblocking subtasks related to foobar stories.

Probably unconsidered:

- The foobar code is a mess and needs to be refactored.

- Or the foobar subsystem is too coupled to the Fizzbuzz subsystem.

- Or the need for some developer tools to increase productivity in the foobar ecosystem.

Since scrum is methodology oriented, methodology is the first tool teams reach for when a problem is encountered. And I see this after team leads make it explicitly OK to discuss technical subjects in retrospectives.

I'm not a psychologist, so I can't describe why this phenomenon happens, but I see it regularly.

[altcognito]

All of the items you listed under unconsidered should be brought up by the dev team. If the dev team is uncomfortable bringing them up, then that's probably a sign of friction between the dev team and management, which is really common.

[the_fury]

I've routinely brought up all of the unconsidered comments in retrospectives. Retros are all about making sprints better, and talking about technical problems is integral to that.

[crdoconnor]

>Scrum is not opinionated about the actual development methodology so claims about how it affects the code that is written are themselves a bad smell IMO.

Pretty much every kind of deadline driven development ramps up technical debt. Scrum certainly isn't the worst in this respect (developers make their own deadlines, and conscientious ones will build the time in), but the emphasis on commitment and the pressure to deliver at the end of the sprint puts pressure on developers to cut corners.

The worst part though, is that the product owner is usually non-technical and will deprioritize stories to clean up technical debt as a result.

IMO for any kind of development methodology to work it must have an opinion on technical debt. Scrum doesn't.

[UK-AL]

Sprints are meant to be based on the previous sprints velocity, so any commitment should get smaller and smaller until you can do it without forcing it.

[cechner]

if pressure is ramping up and quality down the sprints arent serving their purpose.

One of the few defining characteristics of scrum is that the developers define how much they can achieve, and this estimation is improved over time. If this is not happening there is something else wrong with the culture and Scrum is being used as a scapegoat.

[crdoconnor]

A few defining characteristics of scrum that lead to overly optimistic predictions:

* The prediction is made in a meeting while your head is "out of the code".

* The prediction is made in a group setting, rendering the decisions more easily subject to peer pressure and groupthink.

* The prediction is made up to 2/4 weeks in advance of actually doing the work.

* The prediction is made without risk of overshoot attached. Risk is critical metric which scrum conceals.

And the main defining characteristic of scrum that leads to pressure, after all of that unwarranted optimism:

* The prediction is designated as a commitment.

[cechner]

It sounds as though you objecting to being required to give any estimate at all.

[wott]

I don't know how you manage to read this. He seems to say he would like to be in a situation where he has the means to give good estimate but scrum forbids it and forces to give random and biased estimations.

[cechner]

can we infer that he would like to give his estimates:

* while he is actually writing the code (so not up front)

* not in a group setting but as an individual, so either one person estimating the whole thing or each person giving different estimates

* (third point same as first, dont want to estimate up front)

* must incorporate what is often called 'contingency' (which is actually what the whole point of measuring velocity is for!)

* and the final point - he doesn't want to have to commit to it

how can you _not_ read this into it?

[bhaak]

I've seen the "you're doing it wrong" argument so many times (I applied it myself a few times).

Scrum is complex and not always possible to follow exactly, so this is to be expected but it makes me wonder, how many successful projects are out there that are following the true Scrum methodology?

My guess is that it's a few more than the classic waterfall but I still seem to see far more failure than success stories.

[blub]

The very idea of a one-size-fits-all process is unrealistic IMO. Something will always be customised in practice.

Regarding success stories, it might be that process doesn't play such a critical role as long as solid engineering techniques are used and the team is competent.

[bhaak]

If your team is competent and solid engineering techniques are being used, you already have a well working process. Forcing any methodology on this will likely result in a deterioration.

All those methodologies are for the less stellar programming teams, to get consistent results from those (also to a lesser degree to make good and bad programmers work well along each other). Because you can't always get the best programmers.

If Scrum would only work well with good programmers, it would be next to useless.

[xorblurb]

Successful big waterfall engineering projects where waterfall is actually applied exist. Want to construct a bridge or a rocket, design a microprocessor? You are not going to do that with "stories".

It remains to be seen if big Scrum engineering projects where Scrum is actually applied even exist. I can't even think about one on the top of my head. I'm not even sure Scrum is that well defined for us to be able to judge if is correctly applied or not. And it's yet another story to judge if they are successful or not.

In the end it does not matter much. The theoretical vision that nobody ever uses has almost no interest if you are concerned with real world efficiencies.

[dragonwriter]

> Successful big waterfall engineering projects where waterfall is actually applied exist.

You are engaging in equivocation.

> Want to construct a bridge or a rocket, design a microprocessor? You are not going to do that with "stories".

Nor are you going to use the software development methodology described as the waterfall method (you may use a physical engineering methodology that was among the inspirations for that software development methodology, but those are distinctly different things, with different specific practices, and different domains.)

> I'm not even sure Scrum is that well defined for us to be able to judge if is correctly applied or not.

Scrum is exquisitely well-defined, both as to what it involves, what it specifically excludes, and what it is neutral to, in the Scrum Guide. (There's lots of confusion between Agile, a broad approach which is not a specific methodology, and Scrum, a very-specifically-defined -- though by itself fairly incomplete, in that any implementation of Scrum needs lots of decisions on the things to which Scrum is neutral -- methodology.)

[xorblurb]

Ok I maybe went a little far for the bridge, but today a microprocessor is way more similar to software than it is to a bridge (at least in some of the design phase, but then now even in some maintenance phases). And a modern rocket also contains tons of software. And waterfall is similar enough to (at least non-software -- but in my thesis also software) engineering to even consider a direct equivalent for the bridge. Only, quite like a description of a method is often not enough to see how it is properly used, the mythical "waterfall" where a phase begins after the other one, strictly, never happens, and there are all kind of loopbacks -- even for the bridge -- and obviously if you try to remove loopback things will get fucked-up, but why would you try to do that? Now in real world conversations, waterfall is used to designate software being developed with proper general engineering practices.

Scrum origin is partly in manufacturing. Now there are some common points between some aspects of software dev and manufacturing, especially more so if the software being developed can be iterated very quickly (but very few if it's not the case), but at least in the real world (and maybe even in the theory) Scrum is what is also actually mainly used to interact with other stakeholders. And given how the communication is performed, and its content, that might be better than complete chaos when nobody is actually able to do the work they are supposed to do (PM being limited to having vague ideas, lack of a truly competent tech lead doing actual tech lead work, lack of vision by management, and so over) and only very vague general ideas of what should do the software -- or more generally the whole product -- are ever emitted.

As soon as "serious" stuff starts to be involved, you need real boring engineering, with functional analysis, requirement engineering, modeling, systematic testing or even partial proofs, etc. And you need to have it structuring communication between teams, and day to day work. And then, I don't expect Scrum or anything Agile in such a context adding any kind of value.

Now the theory of Agile and Scrum has evolved because of criticisms to a point where we are told that it actually do not cover the things that matter. That is bullshit retro-justification, now that the world is fucked up trying to make sense how to use that. Here is the Agile manifesto:

> We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

> Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

> Working software over comprehensive documentation

> Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

> Responding to change over following a plan

> That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

Engineering is mainly about "processes and tools", of course "individuals and interactions" are also needed, but there is no need to oppose them (although I am not sure what is the point of "individuals" here; the authors might as well said "oh and by the way be nice")

"comprehensive documentation" is critical in all kind of domains, and now that software is everywhere it just makes no sense to declare your "preference" of "working software" above "comprehensive documentation". It is, again, even dangerous to oppose them.

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation; again, highly dependent on the field and specific project if this is something where it makes sense to even have a "preference" or not.

"Following a plan" is what you do about how you organize your work when you use Scrum. There is no problem in studying the impact of a change any time if proper engineering practices are used. Obviously, the cost can vary depending on various factors.

My conclusion about Agile and Scrum, is that if you prefer all of that (4 Agile preferences, and the Scrum theater), you should seek projects that are suitable for the Agile preferences, and so poorly defined that Scrum is a plus. On my side, I'm just not seeking to work on chaotic projects -- on the contrary I try to bring logical and more systematic practice where I feel that chaos reigns -- and I'm neutral about Agile preferences, I prefer to choose projects on other criteria (mostly; intrinsical interest)

[dragonwriter]

> Engineering is mainly about "processes and tools"

And Agile does not avoid processes and tools, it recognizes that process and tools must be specifically fit to the particular team and context of work (Scrum, particularly, is a baseline set of processes and tools that is designed to serve as a framework for common contexts of software work -- its intentionally incomplete to avoid specifying too much that would narrow its scope of applicability.)

> "individuals and interactions" are also needed, but there is no need to oppose them

The need to oppose them comes from the authors' concrete experiences in the software world before writing the manifesto, where very frequently canned (often consultant-pushed) processes and tools were being adopted by management in shops without considering the dynamics of the existing team and the particular work being done. (One of the sad ironies of the Agile movement is that the "Agile" banner itself has become a tool for the same kind of thing.)

> "comprehensive documentation" is critical in all kind of domains

Yes, it is; the preference stated in the manifesto is, again, the result of concrete experience where projects were quite often focused on producing mandated documentary artifacts because there was a checklist and that was how "control" was exercised, but the documents required and delivered were often irrelevant to (and not consumed by, or updated to reflect changes resulting from, the process of) delivering working software.

> Customer collaboration over contract negotiation; again, highly dependent on the field and specific project if this is something where it makes sense to even have a "preference" or not.

This is intended specifically in the content of developing specific software requirements (and, really, its more about the dev team pushing the customer to engage rather than provide hands-off requirements.)

The Agile Manifesto really deals with concrete problems encountered in particularly enterprise software contracting (but bad practices from the enterprise world were, at the time, getting exported to the rest of software development, so not limited to the enterprise world.)

> "Following a plan" is what you do about how you organize your work when you use Scrum.

Scrum, like most methodologies that attempt to implement agile values, focuses quite a lot on managing potential rapid change within the plan.

[xorblurb]

Well, I've got "concrete experiences" in the software world after the manifesto, where this has been interpreted has fuck processes and fuck tools (except those of Scrum, regardless of their applicability -- which is not the majority of projects, far from it) and let idiotic work continue to be done, now that we have a noun for it. This is not better than the previous situation. Honestly if some management is stupid enough to force badly suited processes and tools instead of letting (competent) teams choose better ones, I doubt they will suddenly see the light by reading the Agile manifesto. And again, in too many actual implementations, Working software is not really an output of Agile processes... except now you don't even have a doc anymore. Actually, to get non trivial "Working software", a good documentation is essential. You don't solve anything by casting that you prefer "Working software", especially more so when you are trying to fix a situation where the documentation is mandatory but poor. And guess what, the "client" also want "Working software"...

Scrum is what you do when you try to do software engineering without actually doing software engineering. It insanely meta, and like explained in other comments, the improvements you get from its loop are too often meta (we should evaluate more accurately). I prefer to stick to the real thing, and core engineering practices. Scrum attempts to fix situation when core engineering practices are misunderstood and used as constraints instead of being used as something essential to the dev of a good product; but it is vain to try to fix such a situation by engaging key people even less in core engineering practices, and more in mundane discussions where the real problems are never addressed.

[afroisalreadyin]

I agree that Scrum is dead simple, but that doesn't mean it delivers sensible estimates, or allows you to get somewhere with less effort than some other methodology. You might end up doing more (and worse) work because Scrum is trying to be too simple and linear, which I argue is the case in the post. But it's simple, I definitely agree.

Regarding development: My main point is that Scrum leans towards agile methods such as XP (testing, CI etc), but it also sucks the time necessary to do those things well. The time Scrum takes off of the devs' working hours could much better be spent on those.

[dasmoth]

>>> Scrum is intended to be the straightest line towards measuring your real progress on a project, and not much else

There's slightly more to it than that: it also encodes an assumption that you're working with a single fairly-tightly-integrated group (with synchronisation points at least daily). It's possible that this helps with estimation and scheduling -- it's a lot less clear that it helps get the best outcome in other respects.

[cechner]

I agree, it is often not the best approach. But many situations demand a well defined approach to estimation and although the OP tried to preempt this, he didnt provide an alternative

[dasmoth]

I reckon most experienced coders can cope with estimation when it's justified (i.e. "can we realistically get this done before <specific, real and externally-imposed, deadline>? And if not, is there a useful subset we can manage?"). The bigger problems come when estimation isn't about keeping promises, but rather a part of some form of scientific management aimed at "getting velocity up".

There's also something of an uncertainty principle here -- more precision of estimation is possible, at the expense of increased expected timescales (partly due to padding, partly due to picking lower-risk approaches).

[cechner]

if its being used to 'get velocity up' instead of measuring velocity then its not being done right.

I personally think estimating projects is one of the most difficult things about this industry. Especially if we're talking about delivering many calendar-months worth of effort for a team , unless its just a variant on some other project[s] the team is well experienced at

[cechner]

oh and I have attended some of those expensive Scrum 1-week courses and saw the darker side of that community - it definitely has a cult following that give it a bad name, but I've been to similar conventions around design patterns, object-oriented and (to a lesser degree) functional programming so I think that the community problem is not particular to Scrum.

[bbarn]

Those with the loudest voices simply have the loudest voices, be they right or wrong.

[wott]

The problem is communities.

[akvadrako]

interesting. Do you have an alternative in mind?

[specialist]

"Scrum is intended to be the straightest line towards measuring your real progress on a project, and not much else."

More like wandering in the desert, hoping you find the promised land.

Been thru scrum master training 3 times, been on many "agile" teams. I've never heard this rationalization. Rather, a common justification for "agile" was you always have a working product. Which might be nice if things worked out that way.

Also, PMI style critical path worked just fine for figuring out that "straight line".

Scrum and "agile" democratized project management, empowering every poseur to claim expertise and ability. Whereas PMI required real effort to learn and master, Scrum flavored "self help" books can be flipped thru before you finish your coffee and then safely stored in plain sight on a book shelf, never to be touched again, allowing said poseur to claim the daily mutant chaotic dysfunctional mismanagement that they've always done is now "agile".

[cechner]

If you're objecting to people who treat scrum (or any project management tool) as a one-stop-shop that will cure all ills I agree with you, but nobody here is saying that.

If you are objecting to defining the scope as small tasks and measuring your progress through that over time, then continually re-evaluating this scope as requirements change, then I think you are not working in an environment that would benefit from this kind of tool.

Its just a pragmatic set of guidelines, and objecting to it with such ridiculous vitriol makes you sound as foolish as the people I think you're objecting to.

[specialist]

My goal is to ship products that people will buy and use. Scrum and "agile" has only been an impediment.

"with such ridiculous vitriol"

Emperor, little boy, no clothes. It's thankless work.

In opposition, defenders of Scrum et al use the No True Scotsman's fallacy. Because those of us who have tried and failed are just morons.

[UK-AL]

Considering failure rate of PMI led projects is even higher then agile projects for software. I really wouldn't hold that up that as the way to go.

[specialist]

PMI (critical path) != waterfall. But then that's also said of "agile", which too often devolve to waterfall.

Project management is risk mitigation. In my experience, most "agile" projects have been risk amplifiers. Ironic.