|
|
|
|
|
|
by mmoche
4084 days ago
|
|
|
Scrum has a place, like anything else, and is not objectively bad, as much as you may dislike the principle. There are plenty of people who are neither misled, stupid, or malevolent, who like scrum and apply it where it is appropriate, which is not everywhere. Trust is a two-way street. Not all engineers have low respect for managers and vice-versa. Many of us have regular discussions which effect real change at our organizations, discussions built on mutual trust and devoid of kneejerk reactions to SDLC philosophies or management styles. |
|
|
The idea that engineers are only allowed to work on items in the backlog is objectively bad. Sometimes, it's better to just work rather than trying to politick your work item onto some "backlog" and then work on it.
The implied interchangeability of engineers that comes along with Scrum is objectively bad.
A policy of permanent, aggressive visibility into day-to-day fluctuations of an engineer's work is objectively bad. It's also discriminatory (people with health issues may have acceptable or even excellent average productivity, but high day-to-day or "sprint"-to-"sprint" variance) and counter-productive (since the best people also have the most day-to-day variance). Again, that day-to-day focus is appropriate for an emergency, but not as a persisting policy.
The focus on two-week "sprints" with no thought or allowance given to design, to R&D, to code cleanup and maintenance, to individual career development, or to long-term progress in general, is objectively bad.
The idea that engineers should go to work on Monday having no idea what they're going to be working on for that week, and having no say in the matter, thus obliterating long-term focus as even a remote possibility, is objectively bad.
The implicit age discrimination that comes out of a culture of permanent juniority (there simply is no place for a senior engineer on a Scrum team) is objectively bad.
The dishonest way in which this "Agile" nonsense is sold-- first, in comparison to a ridiculous straw man called "waterfall"; second, as a sustainable management style when it actually works only in short-term emergencies for up to about 6 weeks-- is objectively bad. See this Quora answer for the history of Agile and why the sale of it is so often dishonest: http://www.quora.com/Why-do-some-developers-at-strong-compan...
"Scrum" is just a way to package micromanagement (neo-Taylorism) with a macho sports metaphor that makes it hipster-compliant. Nothing more.