Comments on: Developers do not need SCRUM

By: Dave Dash

Dave Dash — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:14:15 +0000

I agree – don’t need need scrum, but I think it can be very healthy for teams.

We used scrum at Delicious (and they probably still do), it was a good way of just having engineers be organized and deliver deadlines. Scrum-mastering was tough and the learning curve was a bit steep, but we ended up being more predictable – which was a nice way for us to know what features we could assure our users would be coming out soon.

-d

By: Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen

Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:42:15 +0000

Hi Fabian. Although I don’t see anything strictly wrong about Scrum in your statement (although you should mention retrospectives), I think this viewpoint is bit unhealthy.

There is a chasm between business and development, which is very disruptive for the success of a company:

Every day, developers make a hundred tiny decisions which are not necessarily in the best direction for business. These decisions lie in implementation details, spending too much or too little effort on a particular bit of code, selecting a certain layout or design, choosing this or that algorithm or library.. It is the job of a developer to make these decisions, but she/he needs to have a good understanding of the business to make as many good decisions as possible.

Likewise, business people make decisions that affect development. Going for this or that customer, signing this contract, buying that product, etc. For a business to make the most of its technical resources, it is important for the suits to have a good understanding of their developers.

Scrum forces business people down to the development level, and forces programmers up to the business level. In my Scrum implementation, I would love to replace “Developers are happy and they do not have to bother with management.” with “Developers are happy and interact with management every day.”.

There is a lack of business understanding in our industry, some places even ignorance. I think Scrum is a step in the right direction to aligning both sides. Like Friedel says, having a unified language is important, both when discussing products and solutions, as well as methodology.

By: David

David — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:28:19 +0000

What you are describing is an exact opposite of SCRUM:
“And because we just want to do the best for the product, management comes tomorrow to us and tells us what high prio tasks to work on. Deadline for those tasks is in three weeks, but I am sure we can make it”

One of the SCRUM key points is that the DEVELOPERS are in full control of the time plan. They are the only people who know when the product will reach a specific state! “Deadline for those tasks is in 3 weeks, but I am sure we can make it” is last millenium’s team leading style.

I agree that SCRUM does not always work, but it’s a great concept that requires some radical changes in management. Since you are from Germany, I can recommend reading the last 3 or 4 “iX” magazines – there’s a great series of articles about SCRUM in there!

By: NiKo

NiKo — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:15:31 +0000

I don’t agree. I cannot stand project manager with zero knowledge of basic technologies involved in a project, so I think developers are clever enough to understand the basic principles of Scrum. Also, as the Scrum team must be totally involved in the process to be really efficient, I just can’t imagine they’re not aware they’re using scrum tools (brundown, backlog, sprints, etc.)

What’s important is the work of the Scrum Master: he must ensure the team won’t ever be disturbed in its work by something or someone that is not directly related to technical matters of the current sprint.

By: Friedel

Friedel — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:59:46 +0000

I don’t like a culture where people do what other people say without understanding that. I believe it is a benefit when you understand why you do things like you do it.
I agree, that in your example it is not important that the developer knows that method (which he is managed by ) is called SCRUM. It is sufficient to understand the manager style in general.
In my team we recently focused on my Manager’s Management style and how he/we can improve that one. We don’t use SCRUM but we needed more than one meeting to figure out which roles people have in our team. If we would use SCRUM we have an unified language. That might help. (I’m not familiar with the SCRUM)

So, the point is, that you have to understand the management style and if you live in a SCRUM world you can buy books and read articles about it.