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Comment by vosper | Hacker News Reader

You're absolutely right about the fungible teams / Scrum fallacy, and it's one of reasons I always ask the person who's doing the story to re-point it if they feel the point allocation was wrong. This also corrects for the peer-pressure people feel in planning to give stories fewer points [1].

This way at the end of the sprint you get a better idea for how much work was really done. There's an opportunity for abuse - if someone wants to slack off, they can make a 2 point story into an 8 pointer, but that's going to get noticed by everyone, and it hasn't been an issue in practice.

[1] "That's not 4 points, it's definitely 2, it's really not that much work ...", etc.

EDIT: Fixed typo

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"Scrum" is often an attempt to take micromanagement, or the low-status programmer culture, and institutionalize it in a way that seems impersonal and policy-based. Hence, the haggling over story points (a low-status behavior, because it refuses to recognize the meaninglessness of the involved currency and the way the team has been pitted against itself). But high-status programmers just ignore that sort of process and work the way they want to.

If it's a choice between democratised micromanagement, and highly political feudal lords and their serfs, which would you pick?

OK, having the right people manage might be better. Can you point me to an institution that's managed to consistently pull that one off?

> Can you point me to an institution that's managed to consistently pull that one off?

Sure, hoards of shops founded and run by developers with PM's who have actually done the grunt (coding) work in the past.

I've noticed that this problem usually pops up when the PMP certified suits end up managing technical staff.

Can you define high and low status programmers / programmer culture? Because the most competent and productive engineer in my office is also the biggest sticker for the planning / pointing process.

Ultimately I think Scrum needs to be for the team, and the process should be defined by the team. If pointing stories isn't working then the team can stop doing it (we pay it lip service, but that's about it). But you do need some way to agree on what's to be done and who's going to do it.

The planning/pointing process can only benefit people with high status. Rules don't really impact high status employees.

If somebody with high status doesn't meet expectations we tend to think the problem is with the expectations; if they are low status we tend to think the problem is with the person.

In the same way the high status employee has a lot more say over the way story points are allocated and how the work is allocated.

I've been low-status before despite being just as good as everyone else in the team and I've also been high-status despite being one of the worst in the team.

When you are low status people focus on your mistakes. When you are high status people look at your successes and overall contribution.

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