[redler]

The problem with this is that it imposes a membrane on the process that is only permeable to work that contains a shippable piece of user-facing software. It presupposes that all work can be divided into such pieces. And since that's not true, it leads to contorted stories to squeeze necessary work through that membrane.

[ozmbie]

I agree that sprint lengths can be arbitrary and counter-productive to developing good software.

I think it's important to understand that the sprint "membrane" is not designed to help developers. It's designed as a compromise between developers and their managers.

Developers want to work uninterrupted and perfect their work before releasing it, and managers want working software quickly and like to interrupt developers and change courses frequently. Sprints are an attempt to find a middle ground, but it's not always ideal.

[abritinthebay]

> It presupposes that all work can be divided into such pieces.

No, it states the reasonable conclusion that all valuable features can be broken down into such (because otherwise if it adds no value to the product).

There are also Scrum tasks around Research, Tech Debt, etc that are perfectly fine to create and work on but they have an affect on your overall time to build new features and that's ok. Because it needs to be done, so they'll get prioritized accordingly.

[redler]

You italicized "valuable features" and I understand why, but I think the trouble spot is actually the word "all"; your parenthetical about adding no value merely begs the question. I'd argue that, indeed, some valuable features can be organically broken down into two-week user-facing deliverables, but certainly not all and probably not even most. There's nothing magical about being able to partition a deliverable into a sprint's time frame that, by such distinction alone, makes it valuable versus valueless.

Systems like scrum try to wrangle into a manageable bolus a process that -- if we're to make good softare -- necessarily includes creativity, inspiration, and the traveling of paths yet unseen. It's like writing a novel and having two-week deliverables like "complete the arc of the Alice character", versus "write approximately 100 pages". It's not valueless to write 100 pages, despite not finishing the Alice section, and perhaps specifically because we discover that Alice's emerging story turns out to intersect perfectly with what we want to do with the Bob arc later on.

So there's writing and engineering and lines of code versus plotting and architecture and inspiration. We need all of it, right? Does everything that's not a "valuable feature" have to be shunted into the cul de sac of a research spike, doomed to be frowned upon by the management for whom the system otherwise provides the sheen of predictable velocity? Does the critical work of "dreaming" of what to do at both macro and micro levels become a casualty of the banal necessity of marching equal-sized boluses through the development tract?

I'm making a florid point, but to me this feels like the essential tension.

[abritinthebay]

> but certainly not all* and probably not even most.*

Yet to find any that can't. I've yet to hear of any either. Usually that's a problem with the people trying to break things down not being used to modeling things differently - not the process. It's pretty common.

I'd love to hear some examples tbh.

> There's nothing magical about being able to partition a deliverable into a sprint's time frame that, by such distinction alone, makes it valuable versus valueless.

Of course not! The point is not that the time-boxing makes it valuable, I hope I didn't imply that, it's that all features that have value should be specific enough to be able to be broken down. If something is too vague it's not a valuable feature because at that point is just pie in the sky spitballing. That's what requirements and grooming is for - to identify what needs to be broken down, expanded on, or specced out better by the Product Owner.

> It's like writing a novel and having two-week deliverables like "complete the arc of the Alice character", versus "write approximately 100 pages".

That would be awful Scrum process. Also the Product Owner is the Sprint Team in a novel but lets pretend they are two separate people for this: here's how that should work in a Scrum system...

- Story: "complete the arc of the Alice character"

- Feedback: Too vague. What IS the arc? What perspective should it be from? Lots of questions, needs to be broken down.

Next, after the product owner has worked out that we're going to hit these beats in a 3 act structure.

- Story: "complete Alice's arc for Act One, with exposition introducing her and the other characters, ending on the inciting incident for the main plot"

- Feedback: Better, but this is really 3 things - the introduction of Alice, the intro of the other characters, and the inciting incident. You should split those up.

Next, the PO has split this up into those three Stories and presents the first one...

- Story: "We need to introduce Alice so the audience can start to get to know her."

- Feedback: Great, this seems low complexity and simple. We have requirements for her backstory? Ok, great, lets work with that. Seems like a Complexity 2 Story.

Then, when Sprint Planning...

- Scrum Master (not PO): "Ok so we were planning on getting this Alice introduction done this sprint, we still ok with that?"

- Everyone: Yup!

- Scrum Master: Ok, lets break this down into tasks of things we want to cover then.."

And then that part of the story gets written. Obviously it's an odd metaphor, but that's kind of how many (not all, at all) professional authors break down a lot of their writing process anyhow. Some are more freeform of course, but many plan a lot too.

The point is - that just because you have a planning step doesn't remove the creative process, it helps you plan better for work. That's all.

Scrum doesn't magically change how you code or what you code, it's just a planning and change management tool that emphasizes incremental steps.