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Comment by bkq | Hacker News Reader

I get the hate for sprints, and the bastardisation of agile. I think however, the root cause of this is the way in which our society as a whole has been modelled, in a top down manner where control is wrested from the bottom, and perceived control is given to those in between. Each of these articles that make, valid criticisms in my opinion, always makes me think of Bullshit Jobs [1][2]. Most of our lives nowadays are inundated with menial bureaucracy, and each attempt to reform it within bureaucractic systems has simply lead to the red tape being rearranged. I think this stems from our hesitancy to have more horizontal models of ogranisation.

[1] - https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-on-the...

[2] - https://bullshit.ist/bullshit-jobs-how-our-modern-bureaucrac...

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I really like your views on this problem. Never thought about it that way. I had some experiences where what you described was perfectly illustrated. It seems to me that the agile framework allows for each level within an organization (that perceives some sort 'control') to send the responsibilities to the level above, while making the decisions for the level below. Of course there are the daily meetings where this feeling of hierarchy is mitigated since everyone is included, but at the end these meetings really just focus on implementation details of the framework; and not on decisions to make the overall product better.

I don't think hierarchies are necessarily bad, I just think that we tend to implement them in a crappy way where they become the playthings of people who are solely focused on gaming the system for their own benefit. Flat organization makes sense in small groups but that group still needs a leader who can act as the agent of the group when dealing with other groups. It's the representative democracy model which is needed when there are decisions that need to be made on scales larger than that of the group concerned. A leader can also and should act as a tie breaker and moderator when the group is divided or finds themselves unable to make a decision.

Problems arise when those leaders are unaccountable to the people that they represent, you need to have very strong customs and procedures in place that allow you to immediately recall the leader and replace them if they start acting in their own interest rather than the group's. This also requires the group to have good knowledge of what the leader is doing, transparency and a public record of the actions taken by the leader.

See also Yishan Wong's "Let process be implemented by those who practice it" http://algeri-wong.com/yishan/engineering-management-process...

I don't know that 'hesitancy' is the right word. It's just fundamental that people in power use it to seek more power. Even a small initial power imbalance will eventually lead to a large intractable one. Happens at pretty much at all scales of social (political, economic, etc) interactions.

The only solution I see is to set up systems that make power accumulation more difficult coupled with a constant struggle to rebalance when it inevitably lopsided.

I could not agree more, and I think this take is one of those mental jumps that the pro-Sprint crowd hasn't made yet, but would if they adjust their mental view of how organizations are structured to see it.

My long term pet theory (like, next 10-30 years) is: we have this cohort of "kids" growing up now in an environment where there's plenty of money to be made in non-traditional independent ventures; think YouTube, Etsy, Fiverr, or even professional consulting. Not millions for everyone, but a stable living. The internet unlocked this; it just took a couple decades for it to really blossom. Synthesize that trend with the growing "r/antiwork" "end stage capitalism" "quiet quitting" mindset that many people millennial and younger hold. Then you consider declining western populations. I think there's real potential that traditionally structured top-down companies will face challenges competing for talent in the coming decades; and we'll see an increasing trend of peer-driven organizations (you can think of this like worker owned or highly unionized shops, but its less about the ownership structure and more about the power structure and incentive/responsibility culture).

(I know I'm late) Even though your pov is very appealing, I think you are a bit optimistic on the ability of workers to unionize, in any kind of setup. I personally don't believe moving all services workers from being employees to being freelancers and independent is going to resolve the imbalance of power in between capital and labour.

Taxis and food delivery are two domains that are worse for workers now than they were before.

It works for tech workers because they can just go somewhere else in a desperate market.

I believe most content creators are by and large submitted to the market, just a different one.

On top of this mall the jobs you mentioned are not for the crowd.

> I think however, the root cause of this is the way in which our society as a whole has been modelled

Yeah, so maybe it would be better if "hackers" simply start working alongside the rest of society, and give up trying to force misplaced and awkward hippie ideals into their planning meeting, that makes their work completely incompatible with the rest of the organisation, and society?

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