Weekly Notes
September 15, 2024 - September 21, 2024
For those of you who are subscribers but not signed up with Substack, here is a compilation of some notes that I’ve been sharing lately online. Notes are my way of making media suggestions, sharing experiences, and trying out the goofy ideas bouncing around in my head. If you are on Substack already, you may have seen a lot of these in your feed. You can safely disregard this email.
If you want to see comments or reactions to an individual note, click on the time-date stamp at the top of the entry. This link is also useful if you wish to share a specific item.
Spotify presents an interesting post-Scrum development model in this YouTube video series. It’s definitely worth watching.
youtube.com/watch?v=Yvfz4HGtoPc
No matter what people might tell you, story points are time estimates, just like hours, days, or weeks. The time is simply hidden, but it’s still there. Here’s how you can find it again:
hours per story point = total engineering hours in a sprint ÷ total story points in the sprint.
This basic assumption is what allows you to calculate velocity and make delivery projections. If story points didn’t equate to time, you wouldn’t be able to create burn-down charts or make estimates about when a product will be finished.
The important question is: are story points (or any type of estimate) effective at predicting software delivery dates?
My intuition says no. But, I’ll be looking for more hard data on that to present in future essays.
Perfect analogy: product management is the party host, introducing developers to customers and helping everybody have a good experience. This is the agile mentality I'm excited about -- developers moving closer to customers instead of product acting as gatekeepers to customer interactions.
I also appreciate Kent’s ability to be gracious even when he is frustrated and be deliberate about maintaining a positive platform, things I want to be better at myself.
Ever wonder how software as intolerable as Jira could ever be adopted so universally? It's simple. Jira offers cuddly kittens (charts and graphs) that the children (management) simply can't resist. Meanwhile, the mice (programmers) watch from the hole in the wall, muttering, "This isn't going to end well."
"Oh, and this is a special one, my little children. It's called the Sprint Burndown Chart. You're going to want to spend a lot of time with him—he'll be your best friend."
"Be careful with the Assignee Time Report, Jeffrey! He's a trusty little fella that needs lots of cuddles!"
“Martha darling, keep your eye on the Status Entrance Date Report and the Average Time Report. I’m worried they are wondering too far. Let me hold the Status Count Report while you go grab them.
Morning Star processes tomatoes (It's the largest tomato processor in the world!) without any management. This video explains how they do it.
There is no reason a software company couldn't run this way! In fact, this sounds a lot more like the Agile Manifesto than anything I have seen lately among programmers.
Is software ready to enter the future of self-management?
Another mind blowing article by Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini. It's about how Haier uses micro enterprises to turn a massive organization of 75,000 employees and $35 billion in revenue into over 4000+ autonomous startup-like teams. Proof that flat, self-managing companies can scale.
hbr.org/2018/11/the-end-of-bureaucracy
Enjoy your week!