http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=877069


in reply to Nobody Expects the Agile Imposition (Part V): Meetings

Having someone to report to daily helps me as a developer to remain more engaged in whatever tasks I'm working. I find that if I am given a week to do a task, then at the beginning of the week, I am pretty relaxed and not as engaged as I am as I head towards the end of the week. Then generally speaking I am garanteed not to make that deadline, and I'm given another week. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

If I'm given a month. Same thing.

The blowout over-schedule can go multiple months on this plan.

With daily accountability, I may be over a few days, but it's still only a few days--rather than a few weeks or worse a few months.

I also like the idea of keeping management out of developer meetings. Currently I have weekly meetings with a team upon which I am more or less my own boss. I find that most of the reasons I go there is to report to management that I'm still alive and should still get a paycheck. Yet, I get to sit there and listen to bloviations galore by the program manager who doesn't know how to do internal dialog and thinks "outloud", repeating topics we've been discussing for the past few years, without resolution. It's really fun. Anyone wanna take my place?

The only good thing to come out of the meetings is generally a sense of comraderie that we survived another meeting without slipping into a coma.