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Comment by uhtred | Hacker News Reader

>No story enters the sprint unless there is absolute consensus among the engineers as to its point value, and it's the process of coming to that point value that makes sure each individual understands what needs to be done.

I call bs.

Are you telling me that the less experienced / less confident devs on the team don't cave to pressure from the team lead or whoever happens to be the most forceful / loudest to agree that, ok, this is only a 5 pointer and we all understand what needs to be done, because DAVE says it's easy, 30 minutes work tops, and DAVE is tired and has better places to be.

You write as if the team is all top engineers with equality and not one leader and his minions.

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And also, do people actually plan it out or do they just approve every idea that doesn’t sound terrible?

Software is complicated. Half the time I don’t know what the hell anyone is talking about due to labyrinthine requirements, but I’m not going to stop the meetings to ask questions unless I’m the main guy working on it.

But nobody knows who will work on it and you'll stop the meeting during the blind estimation process because you have to estimate points and you don't know what anybody else is estimating.

All of the points you're raising are solved inherently by the way points estimation works with the points playing cards.

You're not stopping the meeting. But it will be your turn to explain why you think it's the number of points you chose, so you'll do that.

Well, yes, I'm telling you exactly that. That's how planning poker works, you have to speak up. You don't even have a choice because the process requires you to.

It sounds like you have a very dysfunctional team if you're characterizing it as a team leader and his "minions".

I'm sorry that's your situation.

Some larger corporations have agile facilitators precisely to nip this kind of problem in the bud.

Playing "poker" at work and having agile helpers sounds like extreme dysfunction.

Well sure, anything can "sound like" extreme dysfunction if you don't actually know what it is.

Do you know what planning poker is, and are you aware it's not a game for fun?

To be fair having demeaning names for the engineers' work activities is not the worst part of corporate agile. Unfortunately.

I have heard some third tier companies and lower play "planning poker" at work. It doesn't sound like any fun or efficient but a cheap paycheck for an "agile helper". I am not sure how many of them have remained employed during these layoffs.

It's not supposed to be fun. It's work, not a game. It's productive because it results in more accurate estimation of tasks, and a better understanding of the work entailed.

Are you against those things? "First tier" companies use planning poker as well, you know.

You seem to be oddly hostile to the concept without seeming to understand it at all.

I don't think there's much evidence if any at all that it provides more accuracy or understanding. First tier companies tend not to use "sprints" at all.

There's nothing to understand, the agile manifesto or worse the "scrum" pamphlet can be read on a lunch break. Somehow engineers who put ten-thousand hours into their craft need a layman agile helper to understand it?

Every sentence of your comment is factually incorrect or irrelevant. I'm not going to continue a conversation with someone who doesn't have an interest in facts.

What you might actually mean is that you are going to try to sell agile snake oil to someone who knows less. Try a middle manager without technical background? They tend to be more receptive.

That’s not an agile problem so where’s the bs? If your team is not following agile you can’t just blame it.

You can certainly criticize a methodology for being difficult or impossible to follow.

But it's easy to follow if a scrum master, facilitator, PM or team lead actually just does it.

There's nothing difficult or impossible about it at all.

But it's true that if the leader doesn't want to follow it that it's not going to work. It requires the person in the position of authority in the room to buy into it. No process will ever work if it's not actually being implemented by anyone.

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