Huh? How are people not contacting the experts or reaching out for help? Seems fundamental to being a professional, doesn’t matter what profession.
That seems like a bad culture more than anything else.
That seems like a bad culture more than anything else.
Being "stuck" working in a company like that really sucks. You can spend years spinning your wheels just trying to keep up. Working at a company that fosters collaboration and non-judmental attitudes. . . it's like night and day, and you can grow your skills and get out of a narrow role, and look at the big picture.
These are the kinds of things that every engineer needs to learn to look for when you're doing an interview somewhere.
I understand your take, thanks for the contrast.
How is the best situation for a prideful introvert to have a scheduled meeting every morning where they can make it known to the entire team exactly how stuck they are?
If anything those are the exact traits that make devs prefer 1-on-1 communication.
Psychological safety is the biggest factor in overal team performance and morale. That safety comes from trust, and that trust comes from routine demonstration of vulnerability and support.
Lone wolf rockstars can have their own moments of self-defeat and wheelspinning too. But if they haven’t developed a sense of courage and humility to admit it and bring it to the team, then the whole team is now literally bottlenecked on their ego.
That's my intuition about what's wrong with these ceremonies: they look like they are trying to foster those things by enforcing the superficial behaviours seen in good teams, but it is just the effect. A team with trust, close bonded and efficient has "standups" and "retros" in an organic way, because that's the effect of a team that work together.
I always felt these methodologies try to turn it around, as in "let's force the superficial behaviours we see in good teams, so it will make other teams as good". But it doesn't work that way and it ends up being a tool for managers.
Because the whole team's doing it, because it creates a space where it's ok to have got stuck, and because the once-a-day schedule sets a clear expectation about how long it's ok to be stuck for without at least considering asking for help.
If you were happy getting yourself unstuck asking for help 1-on-1 you can still do that, and you'll never be stuck when it comes to the standup, so it should be no skin off your nose. The standup is for the sake of the people who would previously be stuck quietly for days at a time.
(though if I'm on the receiving end, I'd prefer to nudge you towards asking in standup or at least in an async way, rather than interrupting my own flow by asking me for help)