I'm a web developer working in a team of three developers and one designer. It's now about five months that we've implemented the agile scrum software development methodology. But I have a weird feeling I just wanted to share in this site.
One important factor in human life is decision-making process. However, there is a big difference in decisions you make. Some decisions are just the outcome of an internal or external force, while other decisions are completely based on your free will, and some decisions are simply something in between. The more freedom you have in making decisions, the more self-driven your work would become. This seems to be a rule. Because we tend to shape our lives ourselves.
There is a big difference between you deciding what to do, or being told what to do.
Before scrum, I felt like having more freedom in making the decisions which were related to development, analysis, prioritizing implementation, etc. I had more feeling like I'm deciding what I'm doing.
However, due to the scrum methodology, now many decisions simply come from the product owner. He prioritizes PBIs, he analyzes how the software should work, even sometimes how the UI and functionality should be implemented. I know that this is part of the scrum methodology, and I also know that this may result in better sales of product in future. However, I now feel like I'm always getting told to do something, instead of deciding to do something. This syndrome now has made me more passive towards the work.
- I tend to search less to find a better solution, approach, or technique
- I don't wake up in the morning expecting to get to an enjoyable work. Rather, I feel like being forced to work in order to live
- I have more hunger to work on my own hobby projects after work
- I won't push the team anymore to get to the higher technological levels
- I spend more time now on dinner, or tea-times and have less enthusiasm to get back to work
- I'm now willing more for the work to finish sooner, so that I can get home
The big problem is, I see and diagnose this behavior in my colleagues too. Is it the outcome of scrum? Does scrum really makes the development team feel like they have no part in forming the overall software, thus making the passive to the project?
How can I overcome this feeling?
Best Answer
This is a serious indicator that something has gone off the rails. An agile project should not feel like this. That "people over process" rhetoric should include "we don't force our people to do things that suck." Here are some ideas:
Are you doing "scrum but"? That is, part scrum, part some other thing. (ie: "We're doing scrum, but all our stories have to come from our PMO, not a product owner.") Lots of crazy crap is called Scrum these days.
Are you, personally, not involved in the process where you should be? I've known a number of people to be upset at the contents of stories, and it turns out that they only get involved once the story is in the sprint backlog. Talk with the product owner early on in the development of the story, and get your feedback in. (As the PO, they have the final say, but that doesn't mean they have to do it alone.)
In Scrum, the team is supposed to own the process, and it's expected that the process will change over time to suit the team's needs. Bring up your concerns at the retrospective. If you can come up with a process tweak to suggest, that tends to make it easier to sell for some teams.