... I don't know where to begin.
From the same person, one after another:
1. Story points are useless because we cannot compare them across teams.
2. Story pointing is useful because it gets the team to discuss the difficulty from different perspectives.
That guy what is the problem came into the office today (unusual, he's in the office maybe once a month), and spent it leading a smear campaign against my boss. Essentially telling folks that process needs to be standardized across the scrum teams, and it is boss's fault that it isn't.
Oh, and: We have an entire team (~4 people) whose primary job is to manage feature numbers, user story numbers and names, and build presentations. This is a BA team, and the primary tech skill is Excel and ppt. They use Jira for project management, and think the point of a planning session is to say what you're going to do to people watching.
To be clear: It isn't.
So here was a fun conversation:
BA: And there's no way to manage this with what we have other than either Excel or Access. Connected Excel sheets gets messy, and Access is slow and clunky.
Someone in conversation: Well, there's Tableau. Or Qlick.
Me: ... There's always Microsoft Power BI.
Everyone: What's that?
Me: It's microsoft's BI solution. It's part of 365, with the E5 license. I think we have E3, and the upgrade is cheap. We can have a database in third normal form, and display whatever we want in Power BI. It's the cheapest and now best BI solution in the space.
Them: You know it?
Me: I used to lead a team of DBAs using power BI and sql server, running in the cloud.
Everyone: ::stunned silence::
What they'll get from it, unfortunately: I can solve it.
I can't. And I won't.
What I want them to get from it: There are solutions for what we are doing. These are all solved problems, and there are solutions that are effective, cheap, and that won't explode the way management through spreadsheet will.
But, I ran out of brain juice after the same woman told me that estimation is great and estimates are useless and we therefore shouldn't do estimation.
Also: I had my first monthly lunch meeting with my boss. When it came around to how I'm feeling about the team, I said I wanted to make sure pay was equitable according to whatever metric he has in his head.
Notice: Equitable. Not equal. And I trust him enough to think he'll have reasonable criteria in his head. Anyway, he said it mostly is equitable and there was one he is looking to solve.
That was my Monday. I'm a wreck. How are you?
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Sounds exhausting.
ReplyDeleteMy Monday was housework. I thought that since I got the house ready to host a game on Saturday, I wouldn't have to do much to get ready for my game tonight. I was wrong. Everything needed done again.
Add in an unexpected extra trip to my daughter's school and me banging my head on the roof of the new car and suddenly I didn't have time to get everything ready and I got stressed, I was already store and the kids refused to help. One of them is 14, he should have been helping.
Well I guess he did help in the end. And we ordered takeout instead of cooking. And we had salamis and cheeses I brought back from France. And then one player arrived late and brought some freshly cooked salt, garlic and chili chips which I swear to god were the most incredible thing I have tasted in years. And they come from the chinese at the end of my street. I'm going to get so fat.
Oh, my Mrs feel over too. She can't really handle falling over and she's in enough pain already. I couldn't catch her but I did manage to grab her cardigan and I took a lot of the force out of the landing. Really all she did in the end was sit down on the floor, but quite fast. Hopefully she'll be fine in a couple days.
The game was good. Proper D&D dungeon exploration, except with not monsters.
So a stressful day which ended well I guess.
Oh bless their hearts.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I won this fight in that we still do proper estimation, but lost it in that we have to track hours on tasks because the parent company wants to bill like we were an agency. ><
Rabbit Stoddard They hate planning poker. Any favorites?
ReplyDeleteBrian Ashford Gosh man. That's a lot. A lot of things that really matter.
ReplyDeleteI know that, in twenty years, I won't care if this project was successful or not. I will care about how I treated people and if I made dinner.
Why do they hate planning poker now? We have estimation cards, but I usually use just a show of fingers, since it doesn't depend on me remembering to actually bring the cards.
ReplyDeleteRabbit Stoddard They say it takes too long, and the people who don't do the work vote. And that numbers are dumb, or something.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols well, people who don’t do the work shouldn’t vote, but why on earth are they complaining about it taking too long? Don’t they want to know if their requirements need clarification?
ReplyDeleteI wish I understood more of your industry to sympathise properly. But I hear your frustration, and I commend your standing firm.
ReplyDeleteThat Guy has grabbed every developer, and locked them in a conference room to discuss roadblocks.
ReplyDeleteMy expectation is the devs will emerge from it in quite the state. Some will need to talk, others will stew. Either way, the amount that'll be developed today will be very low.
I've got testers waiting on work to come out of the devs. The Sprint ends Wed. I am growing worried, and this bullshit isn't helping.
"That Guy has grabbed every developer, and locked them in a conference room to discuss roadblocks."
ReplyDeleteNot very self aware is he?
By the way, of someone from your team put your name into a Google search, might this thread come up and of it did would that be a problem for you?
ReplyDeleteI have tried to find my own G+ before without success. Granted, if you really searched you'd find it. It'd need to be directed.
ReplyDeleteI'm too worried.