Reply to: "The modern workplace is a hive of inactivity and low productivity"

[ladymuck]

I'm working for quite a small Co at the moment (~£100M) and the team was doing great until they hired a scrum master. Now we are in pointless meetings all-day and the scrum master is dictating technology choices (despite being woefully out of his depth in the field). This is where your productivity is going.

Our little team at client co has just been assigned a new ADC - the previous one was quite hands off, was a very good enabler and quickly cut back all the 'ceremonies' to a daily stand up and a fortnightly planning meeting. The new ADC has put in retrospectives, refinement and planning sessions on top of the daily stand ups and is making many 'scrum master' sounding noises. They're also challenging the scope of the team's work and saying building reports for something that's not live should take higher priority than building reports for something that went live before Christmas and which paying customers are complaining about.



So glad I'm just a contractor, the product manager is going to start tearing their hair out

[TheDude]

I'm working for quite a small Co at the moment (~£100M) and the team was doing great until they hired a scrum master. Now we are in pointless meetings all-day and the scrum master is dictating technology choices (despite being woefully out of his depth in the field). This is where your productivity is going.

My current US based scrum master cannot run meetings to time.

Bad enough for me when I want to **** off out of Canary Wharf at 5pm on my days in the office. Awful for my Indian colleagues who probably want to spark a can and watch a bit of TV before bedtime.

[cojak]

I'm working for quite a small Co at the moment (~£100M) and the team was doing great until they hired a scrum master. Now we are in pointless meetings all-day and the scrum master is dictating technology choices (despite being woefully out of his depth in the field). This is where your productivity is going.

Ah, Scrum Masters. . The pinnacle of peak creativity over productivity if ever there was one!

[WTFH]

... they hired... ...woefully out of his depth in the field...

Anyone else wondering if it's sasguru?

[TwoWolves]

I'm working for quite a small Co at the moment (~£100M) and the team was doing great until they hired a scrum master. Now we are in pointless meetings all-day and the scrum master is dictating technology choices (despite being woefully out of his depth in the field). This is where your productivity is going.

[edison]

I don't know some large companies are amazing with their levels of laziness and empire building. They make the public sector look like amateurs.

Totally agree.

Having worked with many private sector companies from medium sized up to FTSE100 as well as several public sector and not for profit organisations, I can safely say that many people in the private sector would make any public sector staff blush at how little productive work they actually do. And get paid more too.

[ladymuck]

I don't know some large companies are amazing with their levels of laziness and empire building. They make the public sector look like amateurs.

They probably learned all they could from the public sector and expanded on it

[SueEllen]

Yep, I can confirm that as well, especially the fact that the bigger the organisation and the worst this is.

In my career I only ever had 2 jobs/roles where I actually had to work full gas all the time and I did all I could to find a more chilled role pronto.

I can also add, and it won't be a surprise, that working in public sector will expose you to unseen and unbelievable levels of laziness.

I don't know some large companies are amazing with their levels of laziness and empire building. They make the public sector look like amateurs.

[cojak]

It is something i noticed decades ago at big firms, over resourcing of projects.

Development teams of say 12 when only 4 or 5 are needed.

Probably middle managers empire building and looking important. And it looks good on the CV the bigger the team you had..

+1. British companies have this down to a fine art.

[Keanu2020]

My last perm role was at a FTSE 5 - roughly 30% on HR task like 360's, 50% office politics to try and position for promotion, 15% Team away days and leave, and maybe 5% on actually doing the job.

[PCTNN]

Yep, I can confirm that as well, especially the fact that the bigger the organisation and the worst this is.

In my career I only ever had 2 jobs/roles where I actually had to work full gas all the time and I did all I could to find a more chilled role pronto.

I can also add, and it won't be a surprise, that working in public sector will expose you to unseen and unbelievable levels of laziness.

[jamesbrown]

Why do people post links to stories behind pay walls? But no summary of the story?

FWIW, the Torygraph paywall is nominal. Turn off javascript on your browser for that individual website and you'll get the substance, minus some pictures.

[sadkingbilly]

So according to the chart we are 20% more productive than Japan, 5% more than Canada.

5% less than Germany.

The US however is 30% more efficient than Germany.

Seems odd that Japan the land of Kaizen and salarymen is so poor against us Brits and our cousins.

France is 15% more productive than us or the G7 despite years of strikes.

One sort of wonders if the measurement methodology is a bit off?

and - enter CUK's finest proponent of doing feck all except post pish on every 'working' day he has.

[Fraidycat]

In a widely circulated essay by a former software developer,
Emmanuel Maggiori, the author confessed: “I’ve been employed in tech for years, but I’ve
almost never worked.”

It is something i noticed decades ago at big firms, over resourcing of projects.

Development teams of say 12 when only 4 or 5 are needed.

Probably middle managers empire building and looking important. And it looks good on the CV the bigger the team you had..

[vetran]

So according to the chart we are 20% more productive than Japan, 5% more than Canada.

5% less than Germany.

The US however is 30% more efficient than Germany.

Seems odd that Japan the land of Kaizen and salarymen is so poor against us Brits and our cousins.

France is 15% more productive than us or the G7 despite years of strikes.

One sort of wonders if the measurement methodology is a bit off?