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Scrum - Effective Efficiency or Delusional Deficiency?

Which is it?

  • The most efficient way to work.

    Votes: 4 10.0%

  • Business Bullshit.

    Votes: 36 90.0%
  • Total voters
    40
Tams

Tams

Member
So I've been looking around for a new job and came upon 'scrum master'.

The only kind of 'scrum' I know is the one in rugby.

So, I looked into it... What the actual fuck is this bullshit, how do people who work with 'scrum masters' not murder them, and why the actual fuck do they get paid so much?!
 
cormack12

cormack12

Gold Member
When I look at the type of people who became scrum masters who I've worked with. There is a pattern of nice people who don't have a particular high tier skill. It seems a graveyard to store people
 
J

jason10mm

Gold Member
Cyberpunkd said:

Scrum Master Roles and Responsibilities | Atlassian

Cultivate a deeper understanding of the pivotal role played by scrum masters and their collaborative impact on agile teams.
www.atlassian.com www.atlassian.com

And here I was thinking Sales is full of BS…
Click to expand...
I read that site and can't tell if it is chatgpt AI nonsense or actual human written pseudo drivel of catchy buzzwords. I know the business market loves their flash in the pan strategies and every now and then one of the less virulent ones stick like lean six sigma but this one ain't it.
 
D

dave_d

Member
So pretty much the problem with Agile/Scrum is that people do some monstrosity that has nothing to do with what they were trying to do with Agile. If you think Agile/Scrum is about code monkeys you're doing it wrong. The guy who wanted to call it conversational development was the smart one. Small teams of people discussing things as adults with each other and working with each other respectfully, that's the main point of Agile. Admittedly I've seen the terrible scrum master. Basically someone trying to use Scrum to micromanage people while not being responsible for them. Oh and of course the daily standup that turned into a 45 minute report to our managers every morning. (This is also completely wrong and the scrum master did nothing to fix the actual point of the daily stand up.) These days Agile/Scrum is just a panopticon. Note I say this because I've done Agile/Scrum in a place that actually understood it and one that didn't. Very much different experiences and the one that did it extremely poorly was done by a guy who literally thought he was a genius and was an agile/scrum expert.(Yeah he definitely wasn't any of that.)


Or put another way pretty much this video covers it.
 
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Soodanim

Soodanim

Gold Member
Zathalus

Zathalus

Member
It's related to Agile software development. Think of it as a sort of project manager. They basically keep track of goals and the teams stories (tasks) over smaller time segments (usually two weeks).

Most modern software development follows it or a variant thereof. Success really depends on how good the entire team is as with most things. Some teams I have been on think the daily standup is the place to discuss everything instead of actually giving meaningful brief updates.

It's a valid job to have, although lots of people are terrible at it.
 
Last edited:
Jinzo Prime

Jinzo Prime

Member
Zathalus said:
It's related to Agile software development. Think of it as a sort of project manager. They basically keep track of goals and the teams stories (tasks) over smaller time segments (usually two weeks).

Most modern software development follows it or a variant thereof. Success really depends on how good the entire team is as with most things. Some teams I have been on think the daily standup is the place to discuss everything instead of actually giving meaningful brief updates.

It's a valid job to have, although lots of people are terrible at it.
Click to expand...
Oh, so it's a group meeting thing. We do that at my job too and it doesn't accomplish anything.
 
Grildon Tundy

Grildon Tundy

Gold Member
B0t9bLi.jpg
 
Billbofet

Billbofet

Member
I have worked with good and bad Scrum Masters. I think it's kind of bullshit and the ones that are good are just good project managers.
I also think it's great for product and software development, but when it's used for transactional processes, it's nonsense - in my experience.
 
IntentionalPun

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Like any workflow management system it can be done poorly are done well. I prefer other lest stringent versions of agile but I've seen it work well, I've even been at companies that adopted agile and seen improvements.

IMO "scrum master" shouldn't really be an actual job, but a role someone on the team plays. At a lot of places you rotate who is the "scrum master" even every 2 weeks or so.
 
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D

dave_d

Member
IntentionalPun said:
IMO "scrum master" shouldn't really be an actual job, but a role someone on the team plays. At a lot of places you rotate who is the "scrum master" even every 2 weeks or so.
Click to expand...

I believe that's how it's actually supposed to be done. That being said way too many places it is a job.(And the person tries to manage people which they're absolutely not supposed to do.)
 
BadBurger

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
A different kind of project manager as far as I can tell, just with different terms to describe what they do.

We have a small number in our org now. Both times I've dealt with one of them it was because they included me in a task on their project without any attempt to reach out to our group or me specifically first, and without following proper change and task creation procedures.

They were both very young, seemingly straight out of college - which isn't surprising considering it being an official role is fairly new in my industry. Years prior one technical manager might have been named scrum master for a certain project, but no one had that actual title.
 
ReBurn

ReBurn

Gold Member
Every place I've been that tried to adopt agile scrum ultimately refused to do it because of the scrum master role. Senior leadership couldn't fathom paying someone who didn't produce anything and also didn't take responsibility for decision making. They would rather pay an actual leader who sets the priorities and drives success than pay someone just to be a facilitator.
 
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AmuroChan

AmuroChan

Member
The Agile methodology can work well for certain types of projects. I'm in software development and we transitioned to Agile about 7-8 years ago. Previously we were doing Waterfall. Agile has made us more efficient and nimble. We've also seen higher satisfaction rates from our customers because of the fast feedback loop. Was it worth all the classes and certifications I had to take and pass? That's debatable I guess, but at least it looks good on my resume.
 
Gp1

Gp1

Member
It depends on the type of project/business practices and the kind of person you are dealing with.

The main point is Agile/(Scrum) and Waterfall/(Traditional project management) must be adapted to each type of project/PMO/organizational needs and not the other way around. The ideia is to adopt what makes sense to your kind project, discard what does not and even mix one methodology with another. But the guy who sells you one methodology hardly will tell you that.

And what do I see out there the most is incompatibility between the project and methodologies. Departments or companies try to shove Agile/Scrum (e.g. just because it's the ""trendy"" one now) on the wrong kind of projects, which can lead to a myriad of problems such as scope creeping (imho it still is the Achilles heel of Agile), budget problems, excessive reworks, the methods becoming more important than the project, etc.
 
Last edited:
StueyDuck

StueyDuck

Member
In theory, by a good team it's effective as fuck.

By most teams however it's more just "get whatever you can out as quickly as possible so the big guys don't think we are useless and fire us" which leads to more unstable and unoptimised products.

Like anything and everything in life there isn't a catch all, magic system that works for everyone and everything perfectly.
 
D

dave_d

Member
sinnergy said:
Agile just a new method for management, every 15 years another flavor for control 🤣
Click to expand...
That's the funny part. Agile was originally written up by software developers to give themselves more autonomy which would actually lead to a better work. (It's pretty much the same shit the field learns every 10-15 years about how real quality teams actually work) So of course it got corrupted into yet another mechanism for micromanagement and extreme control.
 
S

sinnergy

Member
dave_d said:
That's the funny part. Agile was originally written up by software developers to give themselves more autonomy which would actually lead to a better work. (It's pretty much the same shit the field learns every 10-15 years about how real quality teams actually work) So of course it got corrupted into yet another mechanism for micromanagement and extreme control.
Click to expand...
I know, I worked in multiple companies, which after a couple of years turned it into micromanagement mechanism.
 
PuppetMaster

PuppetMaster

Member
It's a utopian idea like communism. It looks nice on paper. But in reality due to the nature of people, it tends to be a lead to inefficiencies and people getting away with basiclly contributing nothing of value to projects while eating up time and budget.
 
Quasicat

Quasicat

Member
I only know about scrum through an episode of Silicon Valley.



Being in education, I really do not have a need for scrum and would probably fight it if it became something I would have to use.
 
Alx

Alx

Member
sinnergy said:
Scrum master == project manager 🤣
Click to expand...
Nah, the scrum master is more like the quality manager, as he’s supposed to be in charge of the application of the process, not the respect of the planning or the evaluation of the results. The product owner is the one closest to project manager (although he has no direct control of the amount of ressources to dedicate to a task)
Generally speaking agile methods can be efficient if you understand what it’s supposed to achieve (which most people don’t, and no it’s not « a serie of small v cycles »). I do agree that the scrum master shouldn’t be needed once the team knows its stuff (just like the quality manager). Also in scrum all that story point/velocity estimation is most often a waste of time.
 
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Gp1

Gp1

Member
My take
Scrumm master = "Agile" version of the PMO guy overseeing if the team is correctly using the tools.
 
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