there is no need for all this jargon – its meaningless.
It's not jargon if you know what it means, as poly so eloquently explained above.
Too much documentation in that post though, that's not the agile way 😉
Jargon is a specialised language used to obscure meaning to outsiders and is used to gatekeep - its not the same as technical language. there simply is no need for it and indeed it hinders good communication
Technical language is needed.
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I don’t think it is bullshit. Traditional waterfall projects were taking too long to deliver business benefit.
Hence new agile methods were developed to deliver incremental business benefits faster.
I think this quote may have been meant sarcastically but its a classic example. Its really unhelpful
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Preumably you don’t work in any kind of software role?
no thank ****. I get to sit in meetings where people talk absolute bollocks though. I’m firmly with TJ on this one. I just find it amusing. I work in Sustainability mainly and try and speak like a normal human where possible. Quite a few acronyms but no waterfalls or journeys
The expectation is I could walk into the OP’s organisation and know immediately what the Scrum Master is supposed to be doing (hint its not 1hr long daily meetings!).
So it doesn’t work then unless well managed?
God this was a depressing read. It is rivalling the "STW is finding it hard" thread but for very different, and all to close to home, reasons.
I have decided that the main issue lies with the person who chose "Scrum Master" as the title for the person leading the meeting. because that is all it is, simply a meeting of people.
If I walked into a pub now, or 2 decades ago, and announced to my friends & family that I was now a "Scrum Master" not only would i personally die a little (lot) inside, I would be widely mocked, probably even by my own mother. If on the other hand I announced that I ran a meeting at work today that lasted 15 minutes and got everyone motivated and sorted out where we had some issues, they would all nod sagely and agree I was doing OK.
effing Scrum Master FFS
there is no need for all this jargon – its meaningless.
I don't think you quite understand. Agile isn't being used as a nebulous adjective here, it's the Agile Method which is a very specific and clearly defined process that has been developed and published as such. It is quite specific. We use the word because that is the name for the process. There's not really any other word for it.
The problem is that it's usually implemented badly, just like most other things in IT.
Jargon is a specialised language used to obscure meaning to outsiders and is used to gatekeep – its not the same as technical language. there simply is no need for it and indeed it hinders good communication
It's not a gatekeeper - it's basic knowledge for working as a software developer in 2023. Saying "scrum master" is obscure is the same as complaining that a building site has a "foreman" or a hospital has a "head nurse".
Anyway, decently run agile projects are a joy to work on, compared to traditionally run projects - at least for normal software development. I wouldn't want to use Agile to develop nuclear powerstation control software, for example, but for building a website or a backend enterprise application it's a lot less stressful for all parties, client included.
. Saying “scrum master” is obscure is the same as complaining that a building site has a “foreman” or a hospital has a “head nurse”.
It isn't that it is obscure, it is incredibly w@nky. Putting the word 'master' on the end of anything indicates that they are better than anyone else in the room. Not a good place to start if you are trying to get on with people
because that is all it is, simply a meeting of people.
That idea is what leads to aimless 90.min meetings every day when people get bored shitless. A scrum is a specific kind of meeting that has rules and those rules exist to make sure what needs to be done gets done and noone wastes time.
If you were building a house you wouldn't just have ten blokes turn up with no roles and just let them grab whatever tools and have a crack at it, would you? You'd organise it into specific roles and they'd each get their parts of the plan to design or build and you'd have someone making sure that they were doing things in the right order and everyone had what they need. That's all this is.
It is obscure and it is all about gatekeeping / making yourself sound clever. Molgrips - I do get it. I get Agile has a specfic meaning to those that speak the language - thats the point of it to make those folk sound like they have special and arcane knowledge. Its just a management process
Scrum master indeed. this chap is the scrum master. 
Putting the word ‘master’ on the end of anything indicates that they are better than anyone else in the room.
Wow, really? It's called the scrum master because they are the person who runs the scrums. It's not like everyone else is a scrum servant. There is no point at which the people in the scrum can move up to master. Most would not want to and do not have the skills. Absolutely noone is subordinate and everyone present knows this.
It's like being the conductor of an orchestra. That doesn't mean they're the best musician there.
Have you seen the attitude that comes with conductors?
Molgrips – I do get it.
No you're saying you get it then following on with saying things that demonstrate you don't get it.
I'm sure there are nursing methods that I know nothing about and you could name drop. But that's fine, I'm not a nurse and I wouldn't be expected to know. Same for project management. You're not a software developer so you wouldn't be expected to know. It's industry specific* and everyone in the industry knows it. I have no idea why you think everything in a technical industry should be obvious to you who doesn't work in it.
* it actually isn't but most people know it from IT
Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with the principle of the thing, it is just the naming convention that sucks. Head MASTER. School MASTER. He Man MASTER of the Universe (now he was the MASTER) Grand MASTER Funk. Edit: Bow before your MASTER
We use traditional project management methodology (in a non-IT environment)
Every so often some consultant or other will arrive and suggest that we should be using Agile - but whenever we have, it ends up just being code for "making shit up as you go along".
We tend to focus more on realistic planning (particularly when it comes to timelines and budget), and then executing to plan - mostly because thats what our clients want. I am working with more biotech clients these days though, who definitely change their minds more often - but thats easier if you have a clearly defined scope in the first place.
I understand why IT use Agile - but it'd do my head in.
Molgrips -Agaile - its just another management technique that is in vogue right now especially in IT. I do get it.
The best of healthcare is done in plain english. there are frequent attempts to dress it up in fancy language but it hinders not helps. I have been thru dozens of iterations of outright winkery in Nursing and thats why I abandoned doing a masters.
Scrum master is particularly stupid. its not a scrum, you do not need a master. Its a meeting to a specific aganda with a specific format with a convener.
Scrum does not even fit at all - a Scrum is two opposing teams trying to push each other off a spot and they all cheat
TJ, I believe the current phrase is "stay in your lane". Have you ever been on a properly run Agile project?
Scrum outside of rugby means a small crowd of people hence it's use here.
It's perfectly plain English. It could have been called the Fred method or anything. It's a name for a set of practices. I'm struggling to see why there's a problem here other than you being a cantankerous old grump shaking his first at the modern world.
If you have specific reasons as to why Agile doesn't work then please join in, but don't just moan non-specifically.
I mean yes there is a lot of **** around, but there always is. But in this case there's also a method that is distinct from the alternatives and can work very well if done right.
My moan is about using fancy language to dress things up and to obscure meanings. Scrum and Scrum master is an utter classic.
Scrum does not mean " small crowd" It has connotations of disorder and rowdyness from some online dictionaries the non rugby meanings
A disordered or confused situation involving a number of people.
a usually brief and disorderly struggle or fight
a usually tightly packed or disorderly crowd
this is why its not plain, simple or good English
Scrum means a crowd of disorderly people. Does that mean a scrum master is responsible for the scrum being disorderly? Did they arrange for this shambles to happen? How do you be the master of something that is disorder? So many questions 🤔
Edit - Beaten to it.
You say it's not good English but everyone who needs to know what it is knows what it is. So the word is doing its job quite well.
What's your experience of Agile projects?
Boom! So suddenly the master is just a master of disorder, not so cool anymore 🙂
Though I'm wondering why TJ is in this thread, hilariously most of you are proving his point by misusing the various terms.
Firstly it's a daily standup not a daily scrum. So called so that the meeting is supposed to be short. Plain English at it's best.
Secondly, Scrum is a flavour of Agile. They aren't interchangeable. Agile came first and is a beautifully simple set of ideas and principles that you can read and understand in 5 minutes. Also written in plain English.
Scrum was invented pretty much as a project management framework to make money/reputations from the simple ideas in Agile. Scrum added roles, ceremonies, and artefacts that sound great to people struggling to regularly release valuable software, and allowed for the invention and monetisation of accreditations, tools and conference speakers.
Lastly, everyone here that works in the industry and hates how your place does agile - why don't you speak up (maybe in the "sprint retrospective 🤮")? You're all (hopefully reasonably) well paid and experienced individuals (given the age demographic here). Why just moan in the corner and hate your job?
It is obscure and it is all about gatekeeping / making yourself sound clever.
thats the point of it to make those folk sound like they have special and arcane knowledge.
What utter tosh. Sorry, but if your take away from this is the framework is all about outside appearences then you could not be any further from the truth. It is an entire framework, components of which are used to get a certain type of job done better and more efficiently. The components and roles within the framework have names because using a plain english description - even a brief one - for what they are each time would get quite tiresome.
Just because you don't know what the terms or job titles mean, does not mean the terms should not exist.
everyone who needs to know what it is knows what it is
Careful now, apparently that is gatekeeping or having sepcial and arcane knowledge. Get thy to hell!
Jargon is a specialised language used to obscure meaning to outsiders and is used to gatekeep – its not the same as technical language. there simply is no need for it and indeed it hinders good communication
it’s not Jargon like you think it is and it’s not used to gatekeep. Anyone who was actually interested in Agile techniques and Scrum (they are not the same thing but often used together) can find out about them with a quick google and watching a few videos. Literally every software team in the world knows what they are - to them knowing if you are managing the project with waterfall or agile is as important as knowing if you are using a compiler or interpreter, or whether the data is going to be passed in xml or json. In a software team it 100% does not hinder communication - the reason for the words is for clarity on how fixed / rigid the requirements are - used correctly the words and the techniques associated with them solve communication problems.
Yes I wouldn’t have picked Scrum master as the name but it’s an industry standard. I wouldn’t pick Charge Nurse or Sister to describe senior nurses either, but within your profession they are widely used and people understand their role.
I don’t think Scrum is derived from rugby (it’s far too popular a term in the US for it to be a rugby analogy) it’s more the general meaning than the sporting one. Although the scrum masters job is to make sure that it’s a well structured gathering of people which engages quickly, gets the job done and let’s people get back to work swiftly so it may be that the originators thought there were analogies to rugby.
FWIW the term “master” might be perceived as in some way mysoginist but in Software, which has a real issue with gender balance, there’s actually a disproportionate* number of female Scrum Masters so I don’t think it’s a big issue. I believe the term Master probably originated from master of ceremonies, because their job is to perform that MC role across various processes (often called ceremonies). The scrum master doesn’t just facilitate the daily scrum meeting - they deal with a whole load of other stuff throughout the day to remove blockers for developers, communicate about the project to external parties and generally help the developers get on with doing their job of writing code whilst the scrum master keeps all the plates spinning.
* compared to actual developers.
This thread eh?
Safe to say, none so blind as them that will not see.
I wouldn’t want to use Agile to develop nuclear powerstation control software, for example,
Horses for courses.
Waterfall or spiral fits better.
More generally, lots of methodologies work. All can be well run. Or, badly run.
This thread, oh my goodness.
why don’t you speak up (maybe in the “sprint retrospective")
Anyway, this is what needs to happen. You don't ask, you don't get.
using a compiler or interpreter, or whether the data is going to be passed in xml or json
Careful now, that's pretty obscure language and I wouldn't want you to be accused of gatekeeping 😀
I've just had some Agile training, for non-software projects. I must admit I was a bit skeptical before, but it does make a lot of sense now. But our trainer was very insistent that Agile isn't always the best method, and a project can fail, not because of the methodology but just because it's badly managed. Also there's nothing to say that a project can't be a hybrid of Agile and waterfall, depending on the stage of the project. I'm sort of looking forward to being part of an Agile project.
The names make sense once you understand the process, but what the OP is involved in isn't Agile (based on my huge!! experience).
Have you ever tried explaining the bits on your bike to someone who knows nothing about bikes?
You're not using jargon, you're just using the names of the components (headset, stem, shock mount, valve stem, etc). Because the person doesn't know anything about bikes, they can't tell if you're using deliberately obscure jargon or just calling things by their names.
That's the stage you are at, @tjagain. You don't know enough to tell if it's jargon or just what things are called.
Put a meeting in your calendar 15mins after the start of the stand up and type “ntd” in the chat window and leave.
The irony is that the scrum master is actually the servant* on the team…
Whilst we’re on about obscure gatekeeping, what is a Charge Nurse anyway? I mean I could Google it and learn something but…
(*I know, it’s a joke…)
I find it quite insulting that someone who doesn’t work in a given profession is telling those who do, and are quite likely experts in it, that how they work is stupid.
I wouldn’t dream of telling someone in another profession that, because I respect other professional’s knowledge and expertise. They know more about their profession than I do.
If thats aimed at me that is NOT what I am doing at all. I merely object to the mangling of language. I said nothing about the validity of the technique apart from that its popular in some fields.
What I object to is the use of ;language to hinder communication - and we have some classic examples here
The bunk appears to know his stuff and he said
"
, hilariously most of you are proving his point by misusing the various terms.
Firstly it’s a daily standup not a daily scrum. So called so that the meeting is supposed to be short. Plain English at it’s best.
Thats merely my point - that using obscure language actually hinders good communication. Scrum and Scrum master is being used in different ways by different folk on this very thread - because the actual meaning is obscure whereas "Daily standup meeting to do X" is clear
TLDR
sounds like this is something to raise in the next retro.
Thats merely my point – that using obscure language actually hinders good communication. Scrum and Scrum master is being used in different ways by different folk on this very thread – because the actual meaning is obscure whereas “Daily standup meeting to do X” is clear
To go back to the bike analogy, if someone says their damper is leaking air when what they mean is their shock is leaking air or their air spring is leaking air, that's still not an example of jargon. It's just what the things are called.
People call things by the wrong name all the time.
you know the word scrum was deliberately chosen by consultancy firms to sell the next best thing to all things business, as it would be latched onto by the public school rugger buggers in senior management roles... for that it worked a treat, the only downside is the promoters of the methodology sound like twits
Just gonna put this here and run away....😉
o assuming a charge out rate of £300 an hour, and every comment has taken 30 minutes (very fag packet) that's £18,900 for the thread to this point.
Is that good value?
Has it solved the original problem?
Will I come back tomorrow?
Or, like the OPs problem, is it the usual suspects running off topic down blind alleys wasting energy on something else (as is so often the STW way)
Agile came first
Did it? I was told SCRUM predates the Agile Manifesto which was about 2001. Or are you just saying agile development practices in general?
TJ's point is valid, in that it doesn't need a name, it could be the morning meeting. Calling is stand-up isn't the same as calling it the Obsfuscation event, but it isn't perfectly clear to someone from outside the field to know what it means, it could be called the daily standing-up meeting.
To me (and I realise it's my interpretation) is that the Scrum term represents a group of people working towards a common goal, pushing in the same direction. But feel free to disagree.
Given how innapproriate I was tld my job title was earlier in the thread I've applied for a Software Development Manager job instead, have at it you lovely lot.
… I see countless, endless and pointless "Ways of Working" meetings in your future.
It’ll be a fine day indeed when the whole scum & sprint thing gets booted for a new flavour of the month.
Exactly what I thought when I first encountered 'Agile', in 2007 ...
If you distil the manifesto, it seems to me to boil down to "make sure you talk to the right people at the right time".
A skill I learned at school.
Perhaps this is why agile feels so infantilising to all those people who are caught up in it but really just want to get on with the job they trained in and don't need all the additional enforced vocabulary, ceremonies, and general pointless overhead.
And the idea of starting to build something, before you know what the something is, is obviously absurd and too stupid for words.
The iterating towards a (never ending) final solution based on continual feedback from prototypes etc, seems much more likely to deliver something genuinely useful in the end.
Let's start building a kitchen. By the time we're half way through, if we're lucky, we might have found out:
• Where the foundations should have been
• That nobody ever wants to cook anything in this building
• That what we needed was a bathroom
… so we can start all over again, keep our jobs for another 18 months, and put the consultancy rates up while we're at it.
Nice article, Mr Knob! Alan Cooper is worth following on Twitter, for as long as that survives.
I'm retired now but this was absolutely my specialist subject for the last 12 years or so of what might laughably be called a career. This thread has reminded me why this stuff is so hard, and although it hasn't made me want to get back into employment I do feel compelled to respond.
Scrum (1997) does pre-date the Agile Manifesto (2001), and according to Ken Schwaber, one of the two original authors of the Scrum guide, it was named after the game, . It was a product development methodology, and although I haven't read recent versions, for at least the first 20 years of its life the Scrum Guide contained no reference to software at all. Scrum has always seemed slightly self-contradictory to me, insisting on following the guide, yet encouraging teams to 'inspect and adapt'. What if your adaptations lead you away from the Guide? Then you aren't doing Scrum. And don't get me started on the certifications scam.
I mentioned that Scrum isn't a software-specific methodology. If you are going to use it for software, you need a lot of other stuff to fill the gaps. The Extreme Programming practices are a good start. The other essential element, whatever kind of product you are trying to develop, is that everyone on the team should have a clear, shared, understanding of the project vision. Who is your customer? What problem are you trying to solve for them? What are your cost and time constraints? What is your acceptable level of quality? When things get tough, what will you let go of/compromise on and what will you defend to the bitter end?
As to the OP's original point, as many others have said the daily stand-up should never last for that long - 15 minutes is the aim. No competent SM would ever let it go on for 45-60 minutes. The sprint retrospective is the obvious place to raise the issue, particularly as a newcomer to the team, but I've always thought it a bit odd to save your problems up for the end of the sprint - if you see a problem, fix it, was always my advice to teams.
By the end of my career, I had distilled my values for software development down to two - Respect, and Continuous Improvement - inspired by Taichi Ohno's work at Toyota. I observed that most dysfunctions in a development team could be traced to a lack of respect towards someone. In the OP's example, the SM is being disrespectful to not only the entire development team but also whoever is paying for the team, by wasting their time and money in an unproductive meeting.
And TJ, if you object to any of this because you don't understand it, that's absolutely fine - you aren't the target audience.
If thats aimed at me that is NOT what I am doing at all. I merely object to the mangling of language. I said nothing about the validity of the technique apart from that its popular in some fields.
What I object to is the use of ;language to hinder communication – and we have some classic examples here
The bunk appears to know his stuff and he said
”
, hilariously most of you are proving his point by misusing the various terms.
Firstly it’s a daily standup not a daily scrum. So called so that the meeting is supposed to be short. Plain English at it’s best.
Thats merely my point – that using obscure language actually hinders good communication. Scrum and Scrum master is being used in different ways by different folk on this very thread – because the actual meaning is obscure whereas “Daily standup meeting to do X” is clear
TJ - no, arguing about whether its called a daily standup or scrum is like arguing whether I have a hoover or vacuum cleaner. Everyone actually knows its a bloody dyson (of course this is STW!). Its clear from the context to those who live their working lives this way what this meeting is and who is responsible for its effectiveness.
However, my teams have a daily standup (which given it's virtual is a misnomer now!) but we don't use Scrum and have no Scrum Master! When you find out we use Lean and Kan-Ban you'll probably pop a blood vessel! Calling it a standup meeting only tells you about the furniture not the content. Other teams in the business have daily standups too - but they aren't working with software so they have completely different purposes, agendas and even direction of information flow.