Scrum sabotaging dev productivity?

by Jul 26, 2023Shorts

Scrum sabotaging dev productivity?

I am spotting a pattern lately. Developers doing less and less😯. Why?

Estimates are getting increasingly bloated 🎈.

What’s inflating these estimates?

It’s down to estimate meetings. Some people find tasks difficult; others don’t dare to contradict. We often lean towards the highest estimate. Just to be on the safe side…

What else is tripping us up?

The pressure to deliver an X amount of PBI’s in a sprint🏃‍♂️. Any shortfall equals ‘punishment’⛔️. So next time better safe dan sorry. We bulk up the estimate.

Finished faster than thought🕐?

Congratulations! But, got time to spare? Likely, no new task is assigned, or you get a ‘filler’ task, like helping Charles. Soon, you learn to stretch tasks till the sprint end.

Will daily standup uncover the truth?

Not always. Daily standups mean pretending a lot with bloated PBI’s 🎭.

Is pretending the new norm?

This will happen so easily because tech work is poorly understood by business users. A barber can’t say a haircut takes a week without questions.

Do we let it slide?

During the demo meeting, I cringe at the volume we delivered. Yet, stakeholders seem thankful for all the work we have done 🙌.

Can we bust this bubble?

Remy van Duijkeren

Remy van Duijkeren

The Marketing Developer

I build automation and integrations that remove the annoying stuff—using Power Platform, Dynamics 365 & Azure.

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