Sprint or Marathon?
I think most of them are familiar with various methodologies that describe how to structure the development process, how to stabilize the quality of a product, or how to achieve a planned result in the expected time frame. And, of course, everyone knows agile, scrum, sprints and other magic words that increase productivity by 20% right after pronouncing them at an important meeting. This note does not reveal these concepts at all (there are many other articles with definitions, implementation rules, as well as dozens of courses from various trainers), it does not even give an answer to the question “what to do?”. It just touches on some existential problem of sprint introduction, and why it does not always work (or always does not work).
From the very beginning of our life path, from the early grades of the school, we are inspired with confidence that life is a set of sprints. “There you have the task, you have 30 minutes, let's go.” The whole system is based on the fact that you can quickly get the result (preferably faster than your classmates), and the expected result. If you went the other way, even if it can open a unique solution or be interesting in itself, they will put you 2 and send them to additional classes. Before the control you urgently need to remember a dozen formulas (why?) And just be able to apply them in the right place. Most people, just a couple of years after school, can’t remember a single chemical compound (well, except C2H5OH) and can hardly imagine which year the ice battle was (did anyone find this useful at all?).
')
Then begins a university, institute or academy. But the model remains virtually unchanged. The same sprint with some assumptions. Only now you need to learn how to digest material in incredible volumes a couple of days before the exam. And then you can also instantly forget it, because you need to learn a new one. And you need to try not to get a nervous breakdown, doing this a couple of times a year for 4-6 years, and a diploma in your pocket. You may argue that there are compulsory coursework and theses in which you need to research something for a long time. But let's be honest. More than 70% ( a convincing enough fictitious number? ) Of people do not do any consistent research, and, moreover, the presence of a diploma and its color will not depend on the results of these studies. And, most often, these "studies" are also a sprint ala "in 10 days to read 10 articles and make a new team."
What then? Another sprint for job search. Most employers arrange quiz-like interviews, ask a couple of algorithmic problems (if we are talking about development) and that’s all. Based on the results of this shortest sprint, and possibly your resume, a decision is made whether to hire you or not.
About 20 years of your life, you were systematically prepared to cope with sprint competitions. They encouraged those who are able to withstand short-term load and pass the test first. They criticized those who could not learn 100 questions for the exam in a week. Your brain has adapted to this and is ready to continue. And so, adult life began, you found a job and think that everything is going well.
The understanding that a learning error has crept in somewhere comes gradually. It all starts small. For example, you want to have a athletic physique, go to the gym and begin to puff. And all of a sudden, the trainer tells you, "by the summer you will not have time to pump up / lose weight." How can I not have time? I puffed on physical education and could perform 10-15 pull-ups by a certain date, and here I can. How many people who vigorously begin the first few months, and they even have progress, but then quit. Come back, throw again, and so on in a circle. Of course, they can find thousands of excuses, ranging from genetics to work / family life. But, more often than not, the real reason is precisely that they are used to winning the sprint, and here, it turns out, to achieve success in achieving ideal forms, you need to spend years. And those guys who, it seems, were nothing of themselves in the first months of training, suddenly, after a few years, they look much better. They were just lucky ...
Further more. You find someone you like to spend time with. You have an affair, and for a while everything is just wonderful. You will learn more and more good, you are already planning a joint future. But time passes, and if you have the courage to admit, it all ends. Because “something is missing” or “you have changed / changed” It repeats itself again and ends again. Until the understanding comes that relations are also not a sprint, and you need to deal with them so that everything is the way you want it. Or maybe they just have not met the one who needs to ...
People get sick. They get sick often, sometimes seriously. Consider the typical problems that happen quite regularly - colds and gastrointestinal diseases. How do most people, even in Russia, prefer to fight this? That's right, throw a handful of pills, among which there will be antibiotics or, worse, antiviral. The disease most often recedes. But not so much time passes, and you need to throw tablets on a new one. Over time, the body gets used to the drugs and stops responding strongly to them (there are many studies that suggest that the era of antibiotics will end soon).
This method is very similar to solving a global problem in a sprint way. It turns out that it is most beneficial to constantly monitor your health, rather than trying to improve it with single injections. And, if you are often sick, then perhaps you need to look deeper at the problem and understand that this is a very long process - the search for the cause and further recovery. Of course, I want to find a magic pill that will make it easier, but, unfortunately, the only recipe is a long systematic work with the shortcomings of your body. Of course, there are thousands of bacterial and viral infections that need to be treated quickly and not to rant about marathons and sprints. But, if this is something chronic, then most likely the recovery process will be long and will include a lot of stages. We will not talk about big health problems like cancer, Alzheimer's, AIDS and so on. Here we need a completely different approach. But, definitely, the journey will be long.
Oh yeah, back to the job that you successfully got to after going through a simple sprint from the employer. Quite suddenly, here you need to do a real project, the average duration of which is usually measured in years. Experienced startups will immediately object that you must first do an MVP in a few months and test the theory. And they will be absolutely right, because people are good at sprints. For a short period it is very easy to keep team motivation and control the result. That is why we see so many successful startups, and that is why small startups occupy niches of large and slow. But, if the business is successful, then sooner or later it will have to become big (this, of course, is not always true, but most often this is what investors want, and without investors there is no startup).
What happens in large and long projects. Motivation disappears, controlling becomes more. Here flexible methodologies come to the rescue. They say “ok, let's break it down into sprints and it will be just as people are used to” (this is a very gross simplification, I know that agile, and scrum in particular, propagandize a little different, forgive the reader for my sake of brevity and as hyperbolization). Indeed, after sprints (and other rituals) are introduced, performance magically improves. Only, the problem of sprints remained. If you “set fire” for several sprints, then after 5-7-10 iterations you will run out of steam. And all because the real project is not a sprint, but a marathon. And not a single sprinter defeated the marathon, moving along it, as in a set of short segments.
From here follows the next big problem of modern development - burnout. Yes, we can present our activity in the form of a set of sprints, and yes, we can even improve control and better evaluate the deadlines, and we can even identify weaknesses in the team and start working on improving the whole team, not its individual members. But this does not negate the fact that working on a project is a marathon! And if you do not prepare for it, but hide it behind a fashionable facade, then it will not cease to be a marathon. And people will die in the workplace. People will move to other companies, hoping to find something better. Some will humble themselves and will fulfill obligations only formally.
What to do? At the very beginning of this note it is said that there will be no answer to this question. This is said because for each individual situation the answer will be different (I do not believe in general solutions; there is no silver bullet for building processes). What can be done? First, recognize that there is a problem, especially if employees suffer / leave and so on. Indeed, recognition of the problem is already half the solution. Secondly, work on corporate culture. People should have an understanding of why they go to work every day. Thirdly, to educate people, give them advice, work with each individually. And everything else is very specific and depends on the details of the team / project / company.
You just need to remember that almost any branch of your life is a marathon. Starting with your health, family, friends and ending with work. For me, it was an unexpected insight several years ago, which took me more than 5 years of professional development (yes, I see, I'm not a very smart little guy).
As with all posts of this type, your real-life stories may even be more valuable than the post itself, so feel free to comment.
From the very beginning of our life path, from the early grades of the school, we are inspired with confidence that life is a set of sprints. “There you have the task, you have 30 minutes, let's go.” The whole system is based on the fact that you can quickly get the result (preferably faster than your classmates), and the expected result. If you went the other way, even if it can open a unique solution or be interesting in itself, they will put you 2 and send them to additional classes. Before the control you urgently need to remember a dozen formulas (why?) And just be able to apply them in the right place. Most people, just a couple of years after school, can’t remember a single chemical compound (well, except C2H5OH) and can hardly imagine which year the ice battle was (did anyone find this useful at all?).
')
Then begins a university, institute or academy. But the model remains virtually unchanged. The same sprint with some assumptions. Only now you need to learn how to digest material in incredible volumes a couple of days before the exam. And then you can also instantly forget it, because you need to learn a new one. And you need to try not to get a nervous breakdown, doing this a couple of times a year for 4-6 years, and a diploma in your pocket. You may argue that there are compulsory coursework and theses in which you need to research something for a long time. But let's be honest. More than 70% ( a convincing enough fictitious number? ) Of people do not do any consistent research, and, moreover, the presence of a diploma and its color will not depend on the results of these studies. And, most often, these "studies" are also a sprint ala "in 10 days to read 10 articles and make a new team."
What then? Another sprint for job search. Most employers arrange quiz-like interviews, ask a couple of algorithmic problems (if we are talking about development) and that’s all. Based on the results of this shortest sprint, and possibly your resume, a decision is made whether to hire you or not.
About 20 years of your life, you were systematically prepared to cope with sprint competitions. They encouraged those who are able to withstand short-term load and pass the test first. They criticized those who could not learn 100 questions for the exam in a week. Your brain has adapted to this and is ready to continue. And so, adult life began, you found a job and think that everything is going well.
The understanding that a learning error has crept in somewhere comes gradually. It all starts small. For example, you want to have a athletic physique, go to the gym and begin to puff. And all of a sudden, the trainer tells you, "by the summer you will not have time to pump up / lose weight." How can I not have time? I puffed on physical education and could perform 10-15 pull-ups by a certain date, and here I can. How many people who vigorously begin the first few months, and they even have progress, but then quit. Come back, throw again, and so on in a circle. Of course, they can find thousands of excuses, ranging from genetics to work / family life. But, more often than not, the real reason is precisely that they are used to winning the sprint, and here, it turns out, to achieve success in achieving ideal forms, you need to spend years. And those guys who, it seems, were nothing of themselves in the first months of training, suddenly, after a few years, they look much better. They were just lucky ...
Further more. You find someone you like to spend time with. You have an affair, and for a while everything is just wonderful. You will learn more and more good, you are already planning a joint future. But time passes, and if you have the courage to admit, it all ends. Because “something is missing” or “you have changed / changed” It repeats itself again and ends again. Until the understanding comes that relations are also not a sprint, and you need to deal with them so that everything is the way you want it. Or maybe they just have not met the one who needs to ...
Health
People get sick. They get sick often, sometimes seriously. Consider the typical problems that happen quite regularly - colds and gastrointestinal diseases. How do most people, even in Russia, prefer to fight this? That's right, throw a handful of pills, among which there will be antibiotics or, worse, antiviral. The disease most often recedes. But not so much time passes, and you need to throw tablets on a new one. Over time, the body gets used to the drugs and stops responding strongly to them (there are many studies that suggest that the era of antibiotics will end soon).
This method is very similar to solving a global problem in a sprint way. It turns out that it is most beneficial to constantly monitor your health, rather than trying to improve it with single injections. And, if you are often sick, then perhaps you need to look deeper at the problem and understand that this is a very long process - the search for the cause and further recovery. Of course, I want to find a magic pill that will make it easier, but, unfortunately, the only recipe is a long systematic work with the shortcomings of your body. Of course, there are thousands of bacterial and viral infections that need to be treated quickly and not to rant about marathons and sprints. But, if this is something chronic, then most likely the recovery process will be long and will include a lot of stages. We will not talk about big health problems like cancer, Alzheimer's, AIDS and so on. Here we need a completely different approach. But, definitely, the journey will be long.
And then IT and Habr?
Oh yeah, back to the job that you successfully got to after going through a simple sprint from the employer. Quite suddenly, here you need to do a real project, the average duration of which is usually measured in years. Experienced startups will immediately object that you must first do an MVP in a few months and test the theory. And they will be absolutely right, because people are good at sprints. For a short period it is very easy to keep team motivation and control the result. That is why we see so many successful startups, and that is why small startups occupy niches of large and slow. But, if the business is successful, then sooner or later it will have to become big (this, of course, is not always true, but most often this is what investors want, and without investors there is no startup).
What happens in large and long projects. Motivation disappears, controlling becomes more. Here flexible methodologies come to the rescue. They say “ok, let's break it down into sprints and it will be just as people are used to” (this is a very gross simplification, I know that agile, and scrum in particular, propagandize a little different, forgive the reader for my sake of brevity and as hyperbolization). Indeed, after sprints (and other rituals) are introduced, performance magically improves. Only, the problem of sprints remained. If you “set fire” for several sprints, then after 5-7-10 iterations you will run out of steam. And all because the real project is not a sprint, but a marathon. And not a single sprinter defeated the marathon, moving along it, as in a set of short segments.
From here follows the next big problem of modern development - burnout. Yes, we can present our activity in the form of a set of sprints, and yes, we can even improve control and better evaluate the deadlines, and we can even identify weaknesses in the team and start working on improving the whole team, not its individual members. But this does not negate the fact that working on a project is a marathon! And if you do not prepare for it, but hide it behind a fashionable facade, then it will not cease to be a marathon. And people will die in the workplace. People will move to other companies, hoping to find something better. Some will humble themselves and will fulfill obligations only formally.
What to do? At the very beginning of this note it is said that there will be no answer to this question. This is said because for each individual situation the answer will be different (I do not believe in general solutions; there is no silver bullet for building processes). What can be done? First, recognize that there is a problem, especially if employees suffer / leave and so on. Indeed, recognition of the problem is already half the solution. Secondly, work on corporate culture. People should have an understanding of why they go to work every day. Thirdly, to educate people, give them advice, work with each individually. And everything else is very specific and depends on the details of the team / project / company.
Instead of a conclusion
You just need to remember that almost any branch of your life is a marathon. Starting with your health, family, friends and ending with work. For me, it was an unexpected insight several years ago, which took me more than 5 years of professional development (yes, I see, I'm not a very smart little guy).
As with all posts of this type, your real-life stories may even be more valuable than the post itself, so feel free to comment.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/461209/
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