Comments on: Event-Driven vs Polling

By: Development and Integrity Management by Eli Lopian » Beyond Scrum and Lean

Development and Integrity Management by Eli Lopian » Beyond Scrum and Lean — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:00:11 +0000

[...] Both Ron Jeffries has commented on my Event vs Polling ideas and so has Travis Illig about having fun with status meetings. [...]

By: Eli Lopian

Eli Lopian — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:27:02 +0000

Ron,
Openness is an important value.
I have, perhaps, shown a way to be open with the ‘chickens’ with your customers and management.

Here is how: As soon as you see that you cannot fulfill your commitment, tell them that.

Let the management help you get your job done. They might have a solution.
I have seen many teams who know that they won’t be able to complete the sprint, but won’t tell management (they are scared, it seems unprofessional, etc) they try to fix it themselves until the last minute and then tell management – sorry we just couldn’t do it, and feel ok about it.

It is NOT ok. It is like setting up a meeting, being stuck in traffic and knowing that you are going to be 20 minutes late and not telling anyone about it. Everyone else must wait for you. Tell them, tell them that you are going to be 20 minutes late. Have integrity.

Otherwise, the only other way that the manager can help you, is if he keeps polling and asking you if you are going to make it on time. That is annoying and wastes both the managers and developers energy.

By: Ron Jeffries

Ron Jeffries — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:57:18 +0000

“We all know that polling wastes more time and energy than event-driven systems.” Not even true, even if applicable, and not even applicable either.

Anyway, Scrum info production is about /publishing/, not polling. Every day at the daily Scrum, everyone proactively reports where they are, where they’re going, and what’s in their way.

Perfect? No. But openness leads to trust; trust leads to safety; safety leads to integrity.