I joined a team that does agile software development.
Apparently that meant that occasionally a slack bot asks me what I did recently.
Apparently that meant that occasionally a slack bot asks me what I did recently.
I actually don't mind it. I'm a noob, it's a small shop, and i'm not sure I'd like a pure "agile" environment anyway... or would want to risk it going wrong.
If the team could commit to updating their stories at the end of the day, then we could cut 15 minutes out of standup by leaving out what we did and just talking about blockers and what we learned.
There's supposed to be some osmosis around hearing what everyone else is working on. But practically if you split into separate scrums, you're only hearing about what people you're already collaborating with are working on and odds are you already know what they're going to say.
If the team is big enough you can't have a combined standup than most of the value of these conversations is already lost. You have to use the tools to telegraph your actions anyway, so why chat about it every morning? Discuss time savers and time wasters instead.
I tried running a scrum of 12 and indeed it was clear from the first standup that it wouldn't fly.
It's especially jarring when systems that claim to be self-aware are so unaware.
One thing I didn't notice for a few quarters was that the slack bot was not automatically configured to show the other people in the standup what was written. This is very important to the standup concept so you can discuss and help others on a task if it seems relevant, and everyone is aware.
Not sure how "agile" it all is but it isn't the worst system as in it isn't as disruptive as everyone chatting all the time.
It's probably some measure of micromanagement going on. Don't buy it if you know what's good for you.