[teampractices] [Engineering] Feedback requested on proposal for creation of Agile Specialist Group

Tue Mar 4 01:51:51 UTC 2014

On 3 March 2014 17:12, Arthur Richards <arichards at wikimedia.org> wrote:

>
> On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 4:59 PM, Oliver Keyes <okeyes at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> So, I'm not an Engineer, I just work here, but my first thought is: you
>> want to *start* with 3 staff, and scale it up to 5 within the same
>> budget year, for this?
>>
>> The justification is a pretty good justification for having *some*resources; teams are finding your knowledge and mentorship useful, you
>> don't have the time to provide as much knowledge and mentorship as people
>> need. But do you and Tomasz really have five staffers' worth of work you're
>> currently having to turn down? Because that's what your ask necessitates.
>> I'd be more comfortable with the idea of hiring a single person and, if
>> they report 'gosh, I'm terribly overworked', hiring a second or even a
>> third at the start of the next budget cycle, but I can't see any
>> explanation in your proposal of why five are necessary: the only example of
>> training you guys have provided that you explicitly call out is a session
>> last August.
>>
>> If mentorship on scrumming is necessary, mentorship on scrumming is
>> necessary. But we need to be very careful about how we spend money. What
>> you're asking for is an entire Features team worth of money to train the
>> engineers we currently have - on an opt-in basis. That sort of ask requires
>> an active demonstration that this workload exists, and I'm not seeing it in
>> your argument. I'd like an explanation of where you guys have five
>> scrum-masters worth of work, and why it wouldn't be just as effective, and
>> far more efficient, to take our existing engineers and spend a relative
>> pittance getting the Scrummaster Certification and external training for
>> *them*that you say the ASG will need anyway.
>>
>
> I think the interest already expressed on this thread from Katie, Steven,
> and Dan justifies the budgeted resourcing.
>
> I'm not sure I agree that a 1.6:1 staffer:person who says they need a
staffer ratio is necessarily a justification for the budgeting. Where's my
1.6 personal chefs? But, I'd make two points.

The first is: the interest expressed by Katie, Steven and Dan is indeed
interest, but they all seem to be asking for something different from what
you're proposing. You're proposing a roving band of individuals with two
roles: acting as scrummasters for teams that don't have scrummasters, and
providing advice for engineers who want to be scrummasters. If I've
misunderstood, I apologise. Everyone so far seems to be saying "we don't
have enough resourcing on our team to be scrumming as well as engineering"
- not "we don't know how" but "we have too much crap to do". So is the
answer advisors, or just hiring engineers for the teams that need them with
a focus in the JDs and interview processes on people with scrum experience
willing to take up being a scrum master as a primary duty? Because it's
sounding a lot closer to the latter than the former, and I'd hope that the
latter could be covered by Features' and Platform's existing budget items,
or worked in if they're not already there.

The second is: we're a non-profit. Sure, people want the ASG. People want a
whole *host* of things. If I went around Features with a blank cheque
asking each team if they wanted a dedicated Liaison who was theirs and
theirs alone, I imagine I'd probably get a lot of "dear god, *please*". If
I asked people if they wanted a dedicated BA, probably the same (although
not so much). If I asked everyone if they wanted a dedicated
researcher...well, I've been in the meetings assigning primary and
secondary roles to us researchers, and there are a lot more areas than
people ;p. Unfortunately, I don't have that blank cheque - none of us do.
People simply expressing interest in having resources available does not
make that resourcing the best use of our highly limited funds, and I have a
pretty serious worry that us creating this group would swiftly lead to us
ignoring other ways of doing the same thing and perpetuating the situation
unless (if/when) the wheels fall off, because we treat its existence as a
sunk cost.

> Note too that the proposal has the ASG ramping up resourcing iteratively,
> starting out with the group's head and two full time positions. Think of
> this as the group's alpha phase, starting to tease out what works and what
> doesn't, determining early on whether or not the propose approach is sound.
> Assuming that the demand (and projected demand) is there, and that the
> group and engineering as a whole felt the approach taken by the ASG to be
> successful, the group would grow after two quarters.
>

Sure, but I don't consider an entirely new team with three people - one of
whom has the job of...supervising the others? What exactly does the head
do? - to be an 'alpha phase'. 3 FTEs is a lot of money, and a lot of time:
I've been involved in hiring processes, and it sucks your life away to do
it for one role, let alone three. You're proposing tentative expansion that
starts with a six-figure down payment and the institution of a new
structured entity within the department, and its associated processes. That
never works out as an alpha phase in practise ;p.

You're budgeting for five, of whom four will actually be available, as I'm
reading the plans. Budget for two, hire one, hire the second as and when it
becomes necessary, not on a quarterly basis, and argue for expansion once
you can demonstrate that the work is needed, not just wanted.

> --
> Arthur Richards
> Software Engineer, Mobile
> [[User:Awjrichards]]
> IRC: awjr
> +1-415-839-6885 x6687
>

-- 
Oliver Keyes
Product Analyst
Wikimedia Foundation
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