Comments for Diary of a ScrumMaster

Comment on Assumption: Continous Delivery of Software reduces its cost by 5 times by Geek Reading May 8, 2013 | Regular Geek

Geek Reading May 8, 2013 | Regular Geek — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:00:55 +0000

[...] Assumption: Continous Delivery of Software reduces its cost by 5 times (Diary of a ScrumMaster) [...]

Comment on Assumption: Continous Delivery of Software reduces its cost by 5 times by Tom Howlett

Tom Howlett — Tue, 07 May 2013 23:35:55 +0000

Thanks Mark

Yes it’s a huge simplification of the problem particularly around whether you can build a product in such a way that adding new features does not get increasingly expensive. I have seen this increasing cost be offset by continually refactoring and improving the design but I think at some point things will tend to start to slow down if you continue to maintain an increasing amount of features, even if this is achieved with less code.

Thanks

Tom

Comment on Assumption: Continous Delivery of Software reduces its cost by 5 times by Mark Durbin

Mark Durbin — Tue, 07 May 2013 23:20:31 +0000

Hi Tom, nice post.

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly, people would counter that, without understanding the whole problem, you build code that gets too complex because of all the rework as new requirements are discovered. So it’s not as cut a dried as more code more complex, the design has an influence on the complexity.

Oh and there’s a typo you might want to edit out: “with and with and”.

Cheers, Mark.

Comment on Assumptions were made for testing by Tom Howlett

Tom Howlett — Fri, 03 May 2013 11:27:13 +0000

Thanks Glenn, I’m making an assumption you’re a helpful person because you comment on my blog, I think this is a useful assumption for us both so perhaps it’s not always damaging.

I find just thinking about assumptions difficult, they seem so hard wired into our way of thinking that it’s difficult to know when we are making them. This chapter has been by far the hardest in the book, but I’m nearly there

Comment on Assumptions were made for testing by Glenn Smith

Glenn Smith — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:08:21 +0000

Generally I agree with this. The most damaging assumptions are those where people link someones behaviour to who they then perceive them to be (behaviour = trait). I believe it’s important to remember that someone’s behaviour is not who they are; by that I mean, if Bob comes late to a meeting, that doesn’t mean he is lazy. Yes the behaviour is them coming to the meeting late, it’s your assumption and interpretation that this means they are lazy.

I would put forward a hypothesis that the assumptions being made about people like this are generally wrong. How can you extrapolate that just because Fred goes home at 5pm he’s not dedicated? Not only are they wrong, but you’re likely to think negatively about them, harming the relationship and not helping your state of mind.

Comment on We can’t go on living this way by Sean McLaughlin

Sean McLaughlin — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:34:05 +0000

Top-down, command-and-control management environments have the hardest time adopting scrum. The executives, in particular the CFO, need to be interviewed and asked if they can accept a new software development framework requiring flexibility in in either scope or delivery date. If the answer is “no”, attempting scrum beyond the individual delivery team level is pointless.
The more embedded the C&C culture, the more uphill the battle. If your CFO sees software development as an expense rather than an investment, update your resume and pack your bags if you really want to practice scrum – it’ll be much easier elsewhere.

Comment on We can’t go on living this way by Joel Tosi

Joel Tosi — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:00:54 +0000

Does this type of environment – the silo’s, blame, controlling type – that is so prevalent today, is that a function of legacy thinking, size of the organization, some other intrinsic property?

I’ve seen this environment in organizations as small as 200. And I’ve seen completely open and transparent organizations up to about 100 total staff. But the growth of the organization seems to introduce this more? Is it because silos feels ‘safer’?

I don’t know, just food for thought.

Comment on We can’t go on living this way by Martin Burns

Martin Burns — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:18:26 +0000

Every manager wants total honesty and transparency from below, combined with the right to obfuscate upwards. Hence reporting becomes increasingly green as it traverses up the hierarchy.

Now to slightly defend managers against the charge of sociopathy, better (NB, not ‘good’ on any absolute scale) managers will do this in part to protect their team – and yes, themselves included – from ‘help’ from above, which doesn’t always come with a benevolent hand, and certainly disrupts the work the team is actually trying to do to restore the actual situation to a genuine green.

But what tends to happen is status reports go green, green, green, green, green, OH SHIT! when the problem just can’t be hidden any more. And when you’ve trained senior management to understand any problem reported to them as a major problem, no wonder they’ll overreact if you start reporting problems early.

You’re right – it does take senior leadership to declare a problem amnesty, with a truth & reconciliation commission, to enable everyone below them to start being honest about their problems without fear.

Comment on We can’t go on living this way by Bob Marshall (@flowchainsensei)

Bob Marshall (@flowchainsensei) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 08:25:30 +0000

Hence my focus on non-violence and eg Nonviolent Communication. Indeed we cannot go on living and working in Jackal cultures.

- Bob

Comment on We can’t go on living this way by changearc

changearc — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:48:26 +0000

Deming and Systems Thinking had a lot to say on this: ie Local Optimisation doesn’t work on a System I too am an optimist but have come to the conclusion they’re right. I still wonder about a “distributed change attack” or “effective leverage”…