We had them in about half of the scrum shops. The retrospective, in my experience, was yet another meeting where things didn't get done either. "We are having too many meetings" was usually not popular either. Don't get me wrong, I like good meetings that result in actionable decisions.
My personal view on scrum is it attempts to trick a software team into micro-managing itself, and it usually results in feeling like kindergarten as a result.
The better shops have been "agile", but not "Agile", and just did what worked, and made changes when they needed to.
I don't think a retrospective is essentially required, but the ability to change and throw out things that don't work -- and have only the right amount of meetings and to talk about the things that matter rather than a template - is.
When a retrospective is to make the team feel they have a voice to make changes, and in reality, nothing changes, that makes the retrospective itself rather soul-crushing theatre, so everybody just says nice things and hopefully nobody gets thrown under the bus when "what could have gone better" is discussed - but often, that still happens.
Scrum is, to me, something people pick when managers don't want to manage.
I like release-early release-often, MVP (in small doses), see http://michaeldehaan.net/post/118860078737/the-rock-paper-sc..., and many of those concepts. But I also don't like the idea that requirements constantly shift - which means architecture can't plan ahead.
I also find Scrum usually is so time-pressured, it can create a constant death-march, and also tends to sacrifice time to crush technical problems as a result - there's no "getting done early, so time to fix the architecture over here", etc. If you have a PM that doesn't allow time for such things, it can be rough.
> Scrum is, to me, something people pick when managers don't want to manage.
This is a really good observation, I think, and lines up with my own experiences--every incapable manager I've ever had thought Scrum was a great idea. The ones I've known have been very linear thinkers with a tendency towards restricted domains of thinking, and Scrum reminds me a little bit of Orwell's "if you can't say it, you can't think it" idea. Scrum gives you a vocabulary that, if you hide in it, requires you to confront many fewer things and make fewer choices.
They're almost all the wrong choices, I think, but there are strains of manager that find choices anathema in the first place and so I can see the appeal.
>>I also find Scrum usually is so time-pressured, it can create a constant death-march, and also tends to sacrifice time to crush technical problems as a result - there's no "getting done early, so time to fix the architecture over here", etc.
Sounds like your teams were underestimating task effort.
>>If you have a PM that doesn't allow time for such things, it can be rough.
Anything's rough with a shitty PM, which is what you've described.
I think one problem is that Agile gives a numerical value to how much work has been done: story points.
Management get addicted to getting more story points, and any push back from developers that would lower the number in the short term is ignored. Seriously, I've seen "average story points per developer per sprint" reported to 2 decimal places as if it's a meaningful number.
> I think one problem is that Agile gives a numerical value to how much work has been done: story points.
Agile does not. Even a number of the defined methodologies sold as "Agile" do not (Scrum, for instance, does not mention either user stories or story points -- it does indicate that backlog items will have estimates that are less-specific when the item is farther out in the tail of the work queue and more refined when it is near the head of the queue, but doesn't specify the terms in which those estimates should be gathered.)
> Seriously, I've seen "average story points per developer per sprint" reported to 2 decimal places as if it's a meaningful number.
If it is fairly stable (which should also be measured if it is going to be used), it is a meaningful number for planning what items are within capacity for a sprint. It may not be meaningful for other purposes even then.
That's a problem with management. All of the agile/scrum resources I've read exclaim, in big bold letters, 'THESE ARE NOT METRICS TO EVALUATE PERFORMANCE; THEY ARE FOR ESTIMATION OF EFFORT'
I've seen average story points reported that way too -- but I think it's just that people don't know not to report all the decimal places that Excel gives them.
> Seriously, I've seen "average story points per developer per sprint" reported to 2 decimal places as if it's a meaningful number.
Ok, explain this to me. Why is this not a meaningful number?
Story points are essentially hours and generally in the shops I worked in, they are converted to hours. If something takes longer, the hours are adjusted.
So really, that's a metric for maximum hours worked ... why is that not a good metric?
If someone is on a remote team and they're expected to work 40 hours a week, why is measuring the maximum hours they were on the job a bad metric?
What? No. Glad I don't work for you.
Nearly all developers I know estimate time (and storypoints) by some (often linear) function of volume and complexity. Volume estimation is usually not very difficult, but complexity is very tricky (and dynamic too). Estimating developer work hours by any proxy that depends on complexity will introduce a margin of uncertainty so large as fo render the number meaningless.
I'd think by and large you would evalute remote workers by theit work output, not by estimating how much time they've spent.
> I'd think by and large you would evalute remote workers by theit work output
Which is what? Lines of code? I think that's even worse.
How do you determine how much work to assign someone if estimates are meaningless? How do you determine if someone is productive or is doing one hour's work per week?
Aside from insults, I don't really see any answers. Have you ever been in a PM role?
Again, if you adjust estimates as you're doing the work ... as in, it's more complex than you thought, so you adjust the estimate ... why are estimates a bad metric and what metric (something that can be quantified) would you recommend?
Uhm, I think you're reading my post a bit uncharitably. I don't think I insulted you, for instance.
I never said that estimates were meaningless, but they are tools for planning with high intrinsic uncertainty, and translating that uncertainty to evaluations gives unfairness. People are very sensitive to (perceived) unfairness and the idea that they will be treated so will give rise to resentment, not to mention incentives to game the system and overestimate. Hence endless bickering about points.
If agile failed for any reason it was misunderstanding human psychology.
Personally I don't think human performance in creative professions is well suited to quantified analysis, especially when team efforts are involved. So I don't really have an answer there.
Nope, the features always won in priority because the project manager / scrumlords would keep it that way, and didn't value the technical plumbing that would actually increase velocity and reduce churn and improve code quality.
> Don't get me wrong, I like good meetings that result in actionable decisions.
Which is what a retrospective _should_ be! "what went wrong, what went right, how can we change our process to keep those wrong things from happening again?" It doesn't necessarily need to be a meeting. The introspection needs to happen, though. No matter what type of process you have - if it's not being constantly reevaluated for efficacy, it's just cargo cult.
Very true, it's not the format but the goal of adapting that matters. If you can discuss and fix your problem in a stand-up, do it. If you need to sit down for half an hour, take time for it. If you need 1/2 day to really understand what is happening and get a shared view to decide what to do, plan it. But make sure that you take action.
My personal view on scrum is it attempts to trick a software team into micro-managing itself, and it usually results in feeling like kindergarten as a result.
The better shops have been "agile", but not "Agile", and just did what worked, and made changes when they needed to.
I don't think a retrospective is essentially required, but the ability to change and throw out things that don't work -- and have only the right amount of meetings and to talk about the things that matter rather than a template - is.
When a retrospective is to make the team feel they have a voice to make changes, and in reality, nothing changes, that makes the retrospective itself rather soul-crushing theatre, so everybody just says nice things and hopefully nobody gets thrown under the bus when "what could have gone better" is discussed - but often, that still happens.
Scrum is, to me, something people pick when managers don't want to manage.
I like release-early release-often, MVP (in small doses), see http://michaeldehaan.net/post/118860078737/the-rock-paper-sc..., and many of those concepts. But I also don't like the idea that requirements constantly shift - which means architecture can't plan ahead.
I also find Scrum usually is so time-pressured, it can create a constant death-march, and also tends to sacrifice time to crush technical problems as a result - there's no "getting done early, so time to fix the architecture over here", etc. If you have a PM that doesn't allow time for such things, it can be rough.
(Not everything fits in two week blocks either)