Sorry, teams can't be only devs. That's IT or something, and implies that tech isn't the business.
Team has to include 'the business', as in, voice of customer, features lens, in those tradeoff prioritizations along with what do we engineer, and what's the truth of where we are on the field, for delivering what satisfies the customer and our constraints. // Hat tip Rands in Repose.
As for "Ultimately it's not about trust, it's about accountability and predictability" that's precisely the characterization I reject. Accountability means you earn your keep by being effective. Predictability, well, milestones come and go, the software gets used forever. That's the predictability needed, which goes right back to effectiveness. You won't magic either of those in a Jira.
The team I work in has a product manager, a designer, a cloud infrastructure automation engineer, as well as seven software engineers. Together we collectively advocate for our users and help with those tradeoffs.
> As for "Ultimately it's not about trust, it's about
> accountability and predictability" that's precisely
> the characterization I reject.
How do you know if you're effective? Perhaps it's a difference from one company to another but I don't think it's unfair that my manager (and others dependent on my team's output) want to scrutinse my decisions, and the outcomes of the team.
Likewise, I can scrutinise the choices of engineers with weekly sprints, to ensure the goal is hit i.e. a timely release with flexible features, or a feature complete product that might overrun.
JIRA doesn't magic effectiveness, agreed. It can help show the truth of the decisions taken toward a goal and how work is progressing. I'm not advocating waterfall (any estimate of "this fully specced feature should be finished in two months" is pure fiction) but JIRA or other similar products can work to let managers know ahead of time, "We're not going to finish this by our initial estimated delivery date." That's a useful tool.
Team has to include 'the business', as in, voice of customer, features lens, in those tradeoff prioritizations along with what do we engineer, and what's the truth of where we are on the field, for delivering what satisfies the customer and our constraints. // Hat tip Rands in Repose.
As for "Ultimately it's not about trust, it's about accountability and predictability" that's precisely the characterization I reject. Accountability means you earn your keep by being effective. Predictability, well, milestones come and go, the software gets used forever. That's the predictability needed, which goes right back to effectiveness. You won't magic either of those in a Jira.