Questioning the efficiency of scrum
I have so many issues on so many levels with scrum that I could probably start writing and finish some tens of thousands of words later. In fact this was what an earlier version of this post looked like, falling as I did into the same trap strong critics of any subject fall into: ranting. But a rant will dilute a persons arguments at best, making them hard to spot amidst a sea of semi-coherent negativity; at worst, one can come of as some half-crazy mumbling doom sayer. So I will take a step back and let others write the things that need to be written and bask in the warmth of their words.
What prompted this post is two things. First was DHH speaking on ep. 45 of the corecursive podcast about the efficiency of standups, and the second was a nice chat I had with my friend Nick on a sunny Sunday on the wasteful attitude that scrum promotes in general.
Here are then some of my personal experiences that lead me to believe that efficiency is not a top priority for scrum.
Stand-ups need to happen daily
Most of the teams at my current workplace start work at 10:00 and do their daily stand-ups at 10:15. Every single day. If you’re still writing code for a living, you’re probably pretty averse to anything that interrupts you and gets you out of the zone. So these devs in order avoid being interrupted just don’t start work until after the daily standup ends. Which often takes more than 10 minutes. ‘Foul’, I hear you cry. ‘Chapter 1 Verse 4 of the Scrum Book explicitly states that stand-ups should never go on for more than 10 minutes, and if they do then you’re doing it wrong’. Right. It’s yet another case of it’s our fault, not scrum’s. For all it’s ‘agile’ mindset, it sure is pretty inflexible and unwilling to accommodate that sometimes life just happens. Anyway, as I was saying the team finishes by 10:30. And it’s not until 10:45 that people come back to work from a quick coffee break and a smoke.
Almost an hour wasted and the day hasn’t even started.
Now, you’re thinking ‘But that’s on you for not managing your people correctly’. Perhaps. But I think that scrum in all its Glorious Ceremonicity (just so you know I’m calling dibs on this word!) is not mindful of people’s time. People are led to believe that time is not a valuable resource- otherwise why would the company insist on throwing it so carelessly away? It gives people the right to be wasteful as they like with their time.
Do we really need to be doing stand-ups every single day? Do they need to be synchronous and in person? Could they not be written and read asynchronously by each team member for example? Or even completely skipped when all team members occupy the same room and sit next to each other all day?
Refinement time
‘Aha! Time for planning poker! You’ll get to experience the benefits of accurate estimation first hand now, you infidel!’. Because of course, there’s nothing more efficient than having 3 backend devs listen to a junior defending the position that adding that new button is a 55 and then holding a vote on something they don’t know and don’t care about. And then holding a re-election because someone said 8. Efficiency is my middle name, right?
‘No you dummy, that’s what’s required for alignment and keeping everyone on the same page.’ Sure, you’re wasting people’s time but for a good reason. I get it. Waste is good.
Joking aside, I can perhaps get behind the alignment argument. But is this the best use of people’s time? Is this the price to pay for being aligned with one another? I believe it is not, and that is yet another opportunity for being inquisitive.
Sprints should be 2-week affairs
I can see you’re about to jump me ‘Oh no sir! You’ve got this one wrong too! Top teams do 1-week sprints! Ha! How about that?’. Right. Got me again. OK, for argument’s sake let’s pretend that all teams are of the highest quality and all sprints are 1-week long affairs.
Now let’s say that the sprint just started, but then life happens and the company needs to quickly react to a change in the market like right now. ‘It’s scrum dude, don’t you worry! It’s all about agility and cat-reflex speed; that’s the whole purpose of its existence!’. And then when asked how soon until it’s ready, the team says ‘Sure, let’s see… we’ll plan it for next sprint. No room in this one’. NEXT SPRINT. And they’re saying that with pride, that they can so seamlessly assimilate the unexpected. A frigging WEEK from now! Jeez, slow down you speed devils.
Once again, it is not the team’s fault. They’ve been vigorously trained through scrum to completely ignore the value of time. How can you explain the concept that ‘hours DO matter’ when the base unit for measuring time is the sprint, AKA a whole week? Would you expect of an Ent that measures time in eons to understand haste? No? Well sh*t, me neither. But there you have it.
Scrum was made by consultants for consultants. External contractors may undertake some work that is projected to run for over a year. It is in that setting where scrum was born and meant for: by catching up with customers every 2 weeks instead of delivering the entire thing after one whole year of development, they minimize risk and allow for changing requirements from their customers. Breaking down a year of development into 2 week increments is obviously a win. But I’m thinking that in current fast-paced environments it just doesn’t cut it; it’s concerned with fixing things of a past era and of a different setting.
Do we need to be publicly shamed like the king in his new invisible threads to stop wasting our and our employers’ time? People are calling for self regulation in our industry or we risk having bad regulation forced onto us. Will scrum’s wasteful practices be the catalyst that triggers outside regulation? I do not think so, it will probably be something like the Boeing MCAS debacle but on a grander scale. But scrum does not do us any favors either; in fact I could well see it being used as an argument for outside regulation. ‘Look at these people, they obviously are clueless to what they’re doing. If they can’t see something as obviously wasteful as scrum for what it is, if they’re so careless and insensitive with their own time, how can they be trusted to be careful with their code that controls so many aspects of our modern lives?’. I do not believe that scrum could ever withstand outside scrutiny. We pride ourselves on our intellect, yet we are totally blind to the harmful practice that it is to follow it. We should re-evaluate our stance and find some better use for our time (sword-fighting anyone?)