Ask HN: Do you think Agile/Scrum is beneficial for software delivery?
I hate the term sprints. The idea is good but the term is horribly inaccurate. Sprint makes it seem like its a quick dash to the finish line and then its over. But the work is never over. One sprint ends and the next one starts immediately after. Work is not a sprint, its a marathon.<p>Sprints conceptually make sense. We have 3 features we want to develop. Lets aim to complete them in the next 2-3 weeks. I like them so long as the goals are extremly well defined and managed. Too many teams though forget the agile aspect of agile development. If there&#x27;s a change to the priorities, its often poorly communicated or just added to the sprint without removing anything.<p>Daily Standups, as practiced by most teams, are a waste of time. They become status updates for the Project Manager or Team Leader.<p>What would be better is for engineers to use the time to review ideas, issues that have cropped up and ask questions about the codebase or specific issues. This is probably what a standup is supposed to be but when its mixed in with the context of status updates, it always takes a back seat.<p>Pointing is a complete waste of time. I have no idea how long a ticket is going to take until I start working on it. Estimations are usually wrong anyway. If anything, tickets should be pointed once the work is complete to track a teams acutal performance and velocity (output).<p>Having the team review tickets for the next sprint (sprint planning) is useful for inital discovery (so long as it doesn&#x27;t involve pointing). One person on your team might know how to solve a bug ticket or know if a feature ticket is deceptively difficult. That discovery process can be extremely valuable.<p>Overall agile ideas I think do help more than they hurt but not always and not by much.