Afraid not, the schedule is quite packed right now with interviews and demo day right around the corner. We will be doing more meetups over the coming months though.
Do you consult companies in implementing these practices? What was the largest team using Scrum that you felt was still effective? At my job, there's 30 people at the daily stand-up and it just seems out of control, especially as we pass a speaking stick across the group. What is this, Lord of the Flies?
Yes. I'm a startup junkie and coder who ended up consulting companies in implementing these practices because once your development group starts growing, performance usually tanks. Big companies are looking at the stats and seeing that in some cases they are spending 10 times the cost and taking 4 times as long to develop similar software to what a small company can put out. So there's a big pain out there.
Avoid large teams! The daily stand-up should be 5, maybe 10 minutes, and should move along very quickly. A 30-person team, especially if the PM is playing scrum master and doing Q&A during the stand-ups, can be the worst kind of death march.
I've watched/participated in about 60 teams, and consulted with other coaches on probably 300 or so. Yes, there are 30-person teams that do well, but it's very rare, and usually there are other things that made them do well.
Organizations consistently over-staff teams, especially those in trouble. It's depressing to watch, because it just makes matters a thousand times worse for everybody involved.
Here's a corny tip that I found actually makes standups a little more bearable: Forget the speaking stick. Use a nerf ball, and forbid hand-offs. Everybody stands and nobody knows who's getting the ball next until the guy throws it. Also you have about 30 seconds to do your standup and then you're done, one way or the other. Standups should always add energy to the team and help with the day's agenda. If it's "Lord of the Flies" you guys are really out-of-whack somewhere.
Well, I was being figurative there, we actually do use a nerfball but I'm pretty sure it's universally despised. What usually happens is someone is done speaking, holds the ball up and looks around for a taker. No one ever really says, "Me next!" so it's thrown to a random person. At least one or two people will drop it per stand-up and someone else will always go, "Nice one, butterfingers!" and there's the awkward, uncomfortable laugh.
I observed this practice for a couple weeks and came to an average of 2.8 seconds per ball movement. Times that by 29 (amount of passes) and you get 81.2 seconds per day we spend tossing that ball around. At an average salary of about $65K amongst the group, the company spends $42.29 per day on passing a ball around; that's just under a $11,000 a year!
Got a better one for you. Start doing the math on how much money you waste thinking you're smart and understand everything and then blow it later on because you missed a key conversation. I'll stack that up against nerf-ball-tossing any day of the week. Or how about useless status reports? (stand-ups are not status reports). Or meetings with required attendance that accomplish nothing?
Communication kills teams. That's why the 30-person team sucks -- communication difficulties expand at an exponential rate. Stand-ups, pair-programming, co-location,and all the rest of that are just feeble attempts to address this problem. If you don't like one of these things, stop it. But that doesn't make the underlying problem go away. Whatever you do, you have to constantly be figuring out ways to solve this problem, not just thinking you've got it nailed because you're doing X.
Agile is very simple. But if you try hard enough, and most teams do, you can screw it up.
What was the largest team using Scrum that you felt was still effective? At my job, there's 30 people at the daily stand-up
Largest feasible scrum team size is around 12 people. Daily stand-up should take less than 15 minutes. If you can't consistently get it down to that, split into 2 or three smaller scrum teams. Do all 30 people work on exactly the same deliverables? I doubt it, so there should be a natural seam along which to split.
Management at my gig decided to just use both, a ScrumBan if you will. I think the general manager just wanted a board to stop and look at every time he had to go to the bathroom.
A truly depressing story, but not surprising when their CEO is on the record as saying, "The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks that we brought into Activision 10 years ago was to take all the fun out making video games. I think we've definitely been able to instill in the culture the skepticism and pessimism and fear that you should have in an economy like we're in today."
I've been a Pandora fan for so long, this article surprised me a bit because I've been so accustomed to them being on the edge of collapse. I remember making donations years ago. I'm glad they're eating "truffle-infused Kobe beef burger[s]" these days.
Some major cities still lack adequate public transportation, like Seattle and Los Angeles. I live in the latter, about 10 miles from downtown due to cost (about $600-$700 cheaper on rent) and I have to drive in because public transportation would include taking light rail to subway to bus and tack on an extra hour to my commute and cost literally hundreds a month. Far cheaper and faster to drive, even with the abysmal LA traffic.
I lived in Seattle for 6 years, 2 of which were completely car free. It's possible, but you're swimming upstream. I'm now in NYC, and it is far easier.
I dunno, I disagreed with your opinion so much I clicked your name, checked out your site and ended up watching the trailer for your game, just to see the kind of person I was dealing with that had an idea so contrary to my own. If you never made that comment, I would never of known about Overgrowth.
Right, and I am thankful for that. However, my point is that in the entire history of my HN career (which spans many, many hours), maybe 100 people have clicked on that link. Maybe 2 of those 100 people turned around and bought the game (probably quite a generous estimate).
If you do the math, that is approaching $0/hour. It is simply not a good way to acquire customers, nor should it be expected to be.
Fair point, but I never said leaving comments on blogs should be a customer acquisition strategy. If it is, you have big problems!
What I was saying is that leaving commnents on blogs helps you get the initial traction, both in terms of exposure and press coverage. That's it. Once you are past that stage, I agree it's an inefficient use of your time to spend all day combing blogs looking for relevant posts to comment on!
Be careful if you have certain prescription needs and check with each company if they cover what you need; the list changes company to company.