[EncomLab]

Relate to the four stages of employment: 1) This is the new person "X" - they are amazing and are going to solve everything! 2) "X" is pretty good, but maybe not as good as we thought. 3) "X" turned out to just be another average performer. 4) "X" is obviously terrible or they would have left for someplace that would treat them better than we do.

[quesera]

I've never seen this written down, but I've definitely seen it in action.

Experienced leaders try to avoid deluding themselves at step 1, and work to prevent things transitioning from step 2 to step 3.

But sometimes it's impossible (or I'm not experienced enough!). Some employees really do start off strong and then fade out, even if the incentive structures are "good" / "above market" / etc.

Honestly, I've seen the roots of this in myself too, in classes, jobs, relationships: initial enthusiasm wanes and at some point it's time to make a different decision. Personally I prefer to move on instead of stagnate, but some people are perfectly happy to ride the suboptimal until a decision is made for them!

[Viliam1234]

Sometimes the new employee's superpower is all the good ideas they have seen in their previous jobs that they are now bringing to your company. But the fact that they work for you now means that they no longer get new experience about how things work in other companies.

Sometimes it is the fact that as a new employee, they are expected to still be learning new things, so they are given less work and responsibilities, which leaves them some time to think. Later, they will probably be given as much work and responsibility as possible, which leaves no time and energy to think about things. Especially with daily agile meetings, which make sure that everyone is only thinking about the things the management wants them to think about (hint: fixing technical debt is not one of those things).

[quesera]

All good points.

I'll qualify one though -- if the "management" who is present on daily standup does not prioritize fixing tech debt, then that person is simply at the wrong level of management to be present.

It's possible to do standups productively, though often they certainly are not.

[Viliam1234]

> It's possible to do standups productively, though often they certainly are not.

The original idea of Scrum was that the daily standups are for developers alone. And they are supposed to be very short; literally while standing up to discourage people from starting long debates. Just say, briefly, what did you work on yesterday, what are you going to work on today, and whether you have any problems. To prevent developers from starting to work on something that other team member already did or is currently doing.

But of course, "Scrum in practice" usually differs dramatically from "Scrum in theory", and the managers are often happy to invite themselves to the daily standups, so what was supposed to become a simple coordination between peers becomes a progress report and an invitation to micromanage.

I have seen it done the right way, but more often I have seen it done the wrong way.