Nothing saddens me more than a developer who can't provide an engaging 30 secs summary of the achievements from the previous day. IMO, it only displays either a lack of intelect, or disinterest in being part of that team.
The blogpost starts explaining that they don't do daily standup because they are using a distributed team all over the world which makes it hard to gather the team for a daily standup. To me this makes perfect sense. There are many good ways for a team to be communicating and working. Everything doesn't need to be lean.
but then author carries on and the article becomes very weird:
"If daily stand-ups really are so awful, why do some managers insist on them? Hard truth: it’s because they’re lazy, incompetent managers"
"Daily stand-ups are not only a waste of time and make software development more expensive, but they demoralise developers and make them want to change jobs."
What works for me might not necessarily work for you, and vice versa - to indicate otherwise strikes me as unprofessional, unsympathetic and demotivational.
And, worse perhaps, there are a lot of incompetent managers that are NOT lazy.
Now, the OP is a specific point of view. It's not unprofessional to have a clear cut point of view on some arbitrary practice.
It's no unsympathetic neither demotivational: from my pov, it's rather a sign that everything may not be lost in IT if there are still people thinking differently.
I also agree with you with your statements. I used those words in the context of the article to make a point.
It sounds like you're talking about a non-toxic organisation. I believe the author is talking about what they've experienced in toxic organisations. I guess the problem is that everyone brings different experiences to the table, and a burned child fears fire.
In the context of toxic organisations where stand ups are a top down mandated micro management tool, I find your comment about intellect and disinterest a bit unfair.
Even if you didnt accomplish anything visible that day, for whatever reason, it's just part of being a mortal and just saying so can help normalize it as well as set a realistic expectation for the team.
edit downvotes for empathy :) HN at it´s best!
Have some empathy bro.
It's really simple, whatever it is, just say it.
It feels like people who don't understand why so many developers hate daily stand-ups doesn't understand social interactions at all.
In case you didn't have a unproductive day there is always something to tell on what you were working. If you were stuck on soemthing and debugging it for 6 hours and have nothing to show for it then tell that you spent 6 hours debugging, someone might even offer you help :D
Why does working have to be exactly like social interactions? Btw what definition are you using? Social interaction in a party? Do pilots in the cockpit wilfully not communicate statuses because they hate it and just want to be chill?
When will you graduate from school? I wanna send some flower.
> or social anxiety, or they haven't learned that skill or they have been stuck on an issue with no progress
> or they've learned management makes their life harder
are radically different problems; the former two belong to the developer, the latter to the manager.
Actually, standup is the best opportunity to communicate that there is a problem (a dev stuck with an issue) and find out how that can be better approached/solved.