When I see posts like this I just remember those old crotchety engineers who would gripe about “scrum bad”, then would absolutely refuse to participate in collaborative planning activities with their fellow teammates. They tended to be the primary source of bad vibes and work breakdowns
I’ve worked with the worst project managers. Sit in a meeting for an hour completely silent, then at the end ask questions that were already answered. I’d love that job. That or scrum master. Our scrum master is fucking useless. I think if he doesn’t move stories around swim lanes he will explode.
When I first started applying for IT jobs back in the day I would see “Scrum Master” jobs get posted a lot and I would think to myself “why the fuck do they need to hire a rugby player” before I knew what a scrum master actually did.
Just the type @Cold_Brew_Enema is talking about. Self-important douche who literally tried holding presentation on what scum master does. On a recreational evening. And we had no choice but sit there and listen because the space we were spending the evening in was the conferencerooms/sauna of their company. Then he had a brilliant idea of making people do airplanes as a “social activity.” Ugh. The average age in that room was past 30.
And yes I’m aware I wrote “scum”, it was on purpose. It was either that or “cum”, but I don’t want to slut-shame anyone and imagine any potential cum masters out there being more pleasant to be around than him.
Oh god that reminds me of an old boss. I’m the type to sit in meetings and listen. Taking in everything and asking few questions/making few statements. I got pulled aside one afternoon and asked, “Why aren’t you participating in the meetings? You hardly speak up and sit there looking bored.” So after a few minutes of this talk I absolutely began asking the actual hard questions that I used to water down while putting in applications on the side.
Got pulled into a meeting a couple months (and several interviews) later on some email discussion I forwarded as way of explanation for a situation I was loosely involved with. The other email participant and I had a very strong relationship and because of that some professionalism fell off. Nothing truly informal. More khakis than dress pants if you will. Anyway, they tried slapping me with the old dreaded formal warning not over the situation, over “my tone used with another professional”, so I pulled out the undated and unsigned notice I had been carrying around since that initial talk.
Anyway, story went on longer than expected. Point is, sometimes you’re fucked either way.
I have been a scrum master for a couple of years. If you can facilitate, teach some scrum basics, and have some ability to get good work from people it’s the easiest job there is
Unfortunately my “train” downsized and my team was dissolved (the team was 80% contract staff in a government IT area, and we had to lose all the contract people) and I’ve been moved to a product owner role
PO isn’t going to be nearly as easy, but it has a good chance of being more fun
If you’re competent, a SM is invaluable, however it’s one of the easiest to replace role. As an example, almost all of the engineers in my division has a PSM I certification. So all the SM do is just facilitate meetings. When we started we have around 5 SMs but currently only have 1 because all of the SMs are redundant since the team already know how scrum works.
A good project manager can make all the difference. I’ve worked with shitty ones and great ones. Great ones are on top of the project, fielding questions and wrangling together key players. Shit ones don’t do any of that then get surprised on their own call when they are behind schedule.
They are usually responsible for planning, generating, and running regular project team meetings. So they get people together but sometimes have done no work since the last meeting they held, so when someone has a reasonable issue that doesn’t meet with the pre done schedule 5 years ago when the project was first instigated, they have super Pikachu face and get mad at the actual doers because they don’t get to just report “on schedule” to their bosses. They could be called the landlords ofthe project based on the sentiment of the greater Lemmy community.
Then you ask a PM for specs before you start, or at least a brief with what needs to be done, and maybe a rough planning based on estimates and not what the customer said what are the deadlines, and they get really offended.
The best sales folks are the ones who promise customers things that are literally impossible (and I do mean literally, eg. promising something that essentially solves the halting problem). Those are always fun to sort out
