Comment by commandlinefan
3 years ago
> has to be planned and approved
It gets worse, too - as long as I've worked as a software developer there's been some sort of time tracking system in place, and it has to be planned up-front, and has to work out to at least 40 hours (after they "negotiate" your estimates down). Which leaves no time for the unplanned stuff that inevitably comes up. This always goes in a cycle like this:
1. Management demands that every bit of work be associated with a ticket
2. devs just open tickets for the unplanned stuff so that it shows up in the ticket tracking system
3. management complains about devs opening "their own" tickets and prohibits self-opened tickets
4. devs do the unplanned (always "super high priority!") stuff without any ticket tracking and fall behind on their "planned" tickets (that nobody really cares about any more, but are still on their board)
1. management demands that every bit of work be associated with a ticket...
It feels bad too have a ton of structure, but the opposite is worse IMO.
Single line tickets from the CEO that turn into months long projects with no guidance on the functionality. Engineers that burn down entire features because "it's bad code." Secret projects where you get berated for asking stakeholders to to clear up requirements because "you're scaring them."
It's easy to look at a rigid structure and assume it sprang wholecloth from Zeus's head - but most of the time it's an overcorrection. Being burned by a company where Freedom is just an excuse to make employees to work overtime will make anyone go a little overboard.
You just gave a bunch of examples of problems that are in no way fixed by ticket bureaucracy, only hidden.
A lot of this thread boils down to "bad engineering is bad" and "bad management is bad". Not a lot of insight to be found IMO...
> after they "negotiate" your estimates down
I hate this. An estimate is an estimate, there is no negotiation, negotiation an estimate is simply interfering with it, making it less objective. It can also be a trick to put pressure on developers.
Wow. I have never seen anything close to that. Why would anyone put up with that?