Over Engineered

00:08.57
Chris Morrell
All right? Welcome back to overengine engineered the podcast where we asked the question. What's the absolute best way to do things we already have a perfectly acceptable solution for today I am back with Skyler and bogin and we have a third guest. Ah. John drexler john you want to say hi.

00:27.20
John Drexler
Hello Hi I cannot imagine a better topic for that the way that you teed that up is so perfect. Yeah I'm excited to be here.

00:37.80
Chris Morrell
So ah John is ah is a partner at thunk I guess and does some product management consulting for us and and recently did a really cool ah product for. Debs talk at the pachp and my c meet up. Ah and ah I guess even though Skyler and bogin you've been been on a bunch of times you want to say a quick hello as well. Quick intro.

01:04.93
Skyler Katz
Sure Hello Good to be back.

01:08.22
Bogdan Kharchenko
So so guys excited to talk about today's topic I hope you guys are as well with the hopefully in the title is gonna say how crazy this is but i.

01:20.60
Chris Morrell
So um, so basically yeah, ah Skyler and bogdy and I work together and ah John's been doing some consulting with us and we ah we were talking about. Ah. Development team practices things like sprints and and the ah ticket estimation and stuff like that and ah to even step back a tiny bit further. Um John did this great talk at the Pgp and yc meet up about just like ah product. Practices for developers and sort of thinking like a pm. Um, that asked a few questions that kind of got me thinking like or questioning some of our practices and so this morning we were in an actual ah like retro meeting and ah just. The the questions led to a really interesting conversation I was and we were just kind of like we should stop and just come back and hit record and do a podcast so that's that's where we are um and so without like ah.

02:26.78
Chris Morrell
Without getting into it too much ah to to get to the conversation quickly like the the basic question was just we do ticket estimation. We do ah two week cycles or two weeks sprints and we use linear um and are trying to get a little bit better about like some. Ah, process things around the way our team works and the the initial sort of question that started this was you know is estimating tickets useful in a team where you don't really need to use that to demonstrate your value because I think um in a lot of ways sort of. Using ticket estimation is often ah a metric of like developer productivity but in in a team where you don't have to necessarily demonstrate that you're productive what other uses does it have but that kind of opened up to this question of like do we even need sprints like what. What processes actually matter. Um, so I guess I'll open that up. Ah John do you want to like talk a little bit about some of your thinking that ah sort of initiated this conversation.

03:37.68
John Drexler
Yeah, so like you did a good job teeing it up I think the I'll caveat it first by saying what I said to you guys a minute ago which is just like this is not yet a strongly held opinion I do feel like I have to like clarify that on the you know the fg scale as we like to do is like there's There's things that I care about a lot more than this this is just an interesting like exploratory question that I couldn't get a satisfying answer for and I kept on asking smart people and couldn't get an satisfying answer for which is like I'm at a point in my career where I believe in like product minimalism like do as little process as you need to do. In order to ensure that you're working on the most important stuff and everyone has clarity on what they're working on so I'm a big I'm a big fan of like cherry pick the stuff from agile that works and don't do the rest of it. You know do as little as possible to make sure that everything works well um, and so I like the idea of like canceling stuff or like not even doing. Some of the rituals if they're not super productive for you and at my last job we were a bigger company and there were so you know we had like the normal sort of communication problems that you have with a large development team and we had we needed to like demonstrate our value to the. Executives so we got like where my team actually got really good at estimating we would like plan out a big project and estimate every ticket in it and could actually get like a pretty credible estimate of how long it was going to take and I I always wondered like why what did we get from that like.

05:10.33
John Drexler
We did this whole huge planning exercise and this huge estimation exercise like what did we really gain from that exercise other than like getting executives off of our backs. Um, and it it wasn't clear to me. So then when I came to thunk I was just telling you guys a story where like we. We were doing a project recently or were were they actually in the middle of a project project. Um, which basically had no process at all. It was just kind of like three good developers crushing tickets you know and it was like we had this big monolithic pile of tickets. Um. It was like loosely prioritized but it like kind of wasn't even that prioritized and people would just pick up the next ticket do the ticket and it worked and it was like oh right if we don't have these communication problems if we don't have this kind of like distrust from executives. We don't. There's no need for these tickets to have an estimate on them. So it led to this conversation with me and Daniel or my partner at thunk who basically I was like why do we even estimate tickets and it was like well you know it's partly to get the executives off your back. It's partly also so you know how much fits into a sprint but then it was like well why do we even have sprints and. I couldn't get to a good answer and I kept on asking smart people like why do this other than to prove to executives that you're working and nobody had a good answer and so like Chris and I were talking about it last week and Chris was like huh. Maybe we should like consider whether or not we need to do that anyway.

06:44.51
John Drexler
I have more thoughts on this but that's my that's my long intro.

06:48.28
Chris Morrell
Yeah, so I mean my my initial reaction was ah, it's useful. It's useful to look at past cycles and say well we completed about this many tickets or this many points. Um, so when we're planning our next cycle like we know generally about how much is realistic to put on there and I think there is some value in that. Um, but I you know it started to get me thinking like is there enough value and I think Skyler you kind of came out. With ah with a yeah let's ah, let's abolish it all like who needs sprints who needs estimates like let's just have well yeah yeah.

07:28.64
John Drexler
Who even needs the backlog. Yeah, ah.

07:29.10
Skyler Katz
Truly my hottest take is that like if something is on the backlog for more than ninety days it should just it should just automatically be deleted. It was clearly not important and if it's important. It'll come back. That's that's my hot take about backlog i.

07:43.25
Chris Morrell
Yeah I get it.

07:47.98
Skyler Katz
You know I think with a sprint like the idea that we're going to get this stuff done. Um, you know at the beginning of the sprint like everything looks good. You come down to the day before the sprint ends and there's 4 tickets left and you're like well we did a lot. I worked hard this sprint but there's 4 tickets left so like did I work hard enough. Um, maybe maybe not though because there's 4 tickets left whereas if you didn't if you just had your prioritized backlog and you were pulling the the items off and every two weeks we were. Celebrating what went well and what didn't go well like you, you still are getting the same amount of work done. But there's less of ah guilt of like you didn't do these things. You said you were going to do ah but you know different different. Ah.

08:37.22
Chris Morrell
Um, there are different different types of ah ways of thinking about this because I think I think what was most interesting and what kind of made me say like let's stop and and actually record this is I think Bob didn't you like basically came out with the exact opposite. Ah.

08:39.32
Skyler Katz
Different opinions different people.

08:54.39
Bogdan Kharchenko
Ah, yeah I mean I will say to speak to the point about estimation I mean aside from like satisfying corporate you know numbers. You know Luckily we don't have to do that here. But I know it's important in other teams. It is obviously a good way to also gauge the performance of the team a number of tickets. But I think the the real.

08:55.32
Chris Morrell
Position right.

09:14.80
Bogdan Kharchenko
Ah, idea at least in my mind as far as estimating tickets is really figuring out how big this ticket is you know because if we don't estimate tickets and we're just oh yeah, we're just going to create this huge feature. Well, that's obviously a lot more work than fix a small bug somewhere on just like a color change. And just knowing that difference and having the ability to explore that I think is worthwhile I recall Skyler kind of mentioned the same thing earlier where you know if you have a big ticket that means maybe you need to split it up earlier in a conversation that we had before we started recording. So um I think that's you know. Probably the biggest most compelling reason to do estimations if you're not using them to size up your team. Great. But I think it's like a really good way to say like is this a big tickets small ticket or a large ticket. So I think that's my position at least an estimation. Um. And if I may I mean as far as prince I feel like you know I come from a different mindset I come from you know, kind of the world of like setting goals. You know, like even just to give you an example like on my refrigerator downstairs. Um, you know we'll have like a shopping list right? Well that shopping list.

10:18.28
John Drexler
Then.

10:28.89
Bogdan Kharchenko
Is important for this week or the next like few weeks I don't make a shopping list for an item that I need to buy a year from now you know at the very bottom of this list. You know it's like here's the thing that we've committed to doing this week and that's kind of what we're preparing for. And the nice thing about that is like when you remove that item. There's a satisfaction that you have like you've completed that entire list and that's how I feel about sprints like you say okay well out of this backlog of tickets. We're going to select 5 tickets or whatever. And you know when I complete 4 out of 5 you know that's like 80% done. That's like a really good thing you know whereas I feel like when you don't have this kind of formality to sit for per se you could if you could get into a situation where you just feel burnt out like you're never getting There's no end in sight. You know you're constantly working nonstop nonstop even though ah you are working nonstop anyway, basically but there's like this period of time where you're kind of like giving it a go. So at least that's my position I can give you another example in a little bit but how does that sound to you guys.

11:34.43
John Drexler
I do think that's that's totally valid. It's funny because as you said that in front of me on my desk I have this stack of purple note cards which is like every goal that I've had over the last six seven years that I like write them all down and sort them and stuff I'm like i.

11:47.98
Bogdan Kharchenko
More.

11:52.73
John Drexler
That makes a ton of sense to me. Actually it's just like psychologically setting a goal and going after it and then knowing whether or not you hit it on a regular basis is is a good feeling I do I Totally get that.

12:04.50
Bogdan Kharchenko
Yeah I'll give you another example I used to do motorcycle racing back in the day and we used to have like a season right? like there you have good multiple race tracks and do all these races and during one day you may do during one weekend you may do like 3 or four races. So you know when you look at it from a whole you know, kind of like. Zoomed out like obviously you need to do all this stuff. You know, but like when the weekend comes to actually do this race. Well you're training for this weekend right? Whether that's physically or making adjustments to your motorcycle after that weekend, you take that information and you improve it on it on the next weekend. You you reset your mental state to do this other sprint and it just so happens that these races were also called sprints and so that's kind of like I think what has been in the back of my mind this entire time like all right? Well I'm just doing this like 1 race and like after this race. I need to see what went. Well, what didn't go well how we can improve that on the next race because otherwise you know like again eventually the gas is going to run out on your on your brain and you're going to tumble and fall I feel like that's at least how I operate right.

13:17.23
Skyler Katz
I mean I I agree that it's good to go back and see like how did we? How did we do, but it is. It is very rare that as a team we finish every single item into do each sprint. Most of the time there's a handful that carry over and linear just like carries it over and then you go back to look at the sprint yeah later and you're like oh well,, there's nothing and to do um but like what is like psychologically to me like we fail every sprint because we don't complete it. Um.

13:46.50
Chris Morrell
Well look.

13:52.88
Chris Morrell
So I also would challenge that question like has any has it I have I can't think of a time when I have gone back to a sprint to see like other than looking at the just aggregate numbers of like how many points in average, we complete on a sprint I don't.

13:55.97
Skyler Katz
You know.

14:10.94
Chris Morrell
I've never looked at a pass sprint.

14:12.00
John Drexler
Well and this gets to like the question that I was sort of asking even at my my last team where we got really good at this and I'd argue you you guys are pretty good at it like the you guys block off a big chunk of tickets and you get most of them done every cycle and like. That's better than a lot of teams that I've interacted with so like I think you guys are pretty good at it. My last team was pretty good at it like and but I kept on I kept on running up against this where I was like what did this get us. You know it's like we figured out that this project was exactly 56 points and we finished it.

14:31.95
Chris Morrell
So.

14:48.50
John Drexler
You know, just three days after we thought we would finish it and so our roadmap for that quarter was pretty accurate and it was sort of like so what you know what did we? We know what our sprint velocity is now like what do we? What productively did we achieve you know.

15:05.56
Chris Morrell
Um, so I have three concrete thoughts here. Um, and I'll I'll say the 1 ah first which is is kind of like the more traditional thinking about this I think ah which is just.

15:20.94
Chris Morrell
You know when you are planning having ah a general sense of how long something is going to take is useful when when we're talking about you know over here. We might have ah let's say a dozen projects that are like sort of reasonably on the horizon. And say 3 or 4 that we're actually sort of thinking about as as being like on the agenda. Um, and it's like the difference between thinking. Okay, this project is going to take you know three sprints versus this project is going to take.

16:00.14
Chris Morrell
Some unknown amount of time you know there is concrete value in that. So. That's that's one point that I want I I want to make just sort of thinking about the traditional planning approach to things. Um, the thing that I came to our retro today with. I think is an interesting idea and I'd be curious to get more specific feedback on is um, sort of twofold. The the one is you know we've been using Sprint planning to be a little bit more thoughtful about putting. Tickets that all like essentially point us in the same direction right? We've been, we've we've kind of been talking about the value of everyone everyone on the team being generally focused on the same things for a given cycle rather than like. 1 person working on 1 project and the other 2 people working on a different project or all 3 of us working on 3 different projects like ah I think as a team where ah we we have acknowledged some value in like all of us being sort of working on the same thing we can we get more value out of pairing. We get more value of just like. Not having to do so much context switching all that stuff. Um, and so there's an argument for well. Okay, maybe we have 15 things at the top of our like ready list. Um, that are all pretty important but you know.

17:31.21
Chris Morrell
6 of those 15 things are all on the same project and we can kind of generally agree that like that project is you know on the roadmap is one of the top priorities. So like let's take this sprint to really focus on that project. Ah so that we're not like jumping around um and I think. I think that's a compelling argument for like sort of not just not just picking necessarily the absolute top of the list of priorities but like kind of looking at the the top fifteen twenty different things and sort of. Picking a theme for a period of time. The other thing that I would say ah is I could see a world where we continue to do some planning for cycles. Um, but we're mostly.

18:28.98
Chris Morrell
Putting tickets onto the cycle that have some sort of time ah requirement whether it's maybe it's not as specific as a due date but just like this needs to happen soon. So we want to like specifically put it on this cycle. So we know it gets done in the next two weeks and and like maybe a given cycle would only have 4 tickets on it and then the rest of the work that gets done on that cycle is stuff that's at the top of the prioritized backlog. But that you kind of still have that place to say. As a team want to commit to these 4 things getting done in the next two weeks and everything else is um, you know everything else is just pick from the top priorities but there's a little bit of thought that goes into yeah there it may be that there's 1 thing at the top of the list. That's super urgent. But like after having a conversation. We know that it can wait like its urgency comes up in three and a half weeks the next two weeks as long as we know that we commit to it in the next cycle we can wait. Um and so taking that moment to plan and kind of. Say these are the things that we're prioritizing. Um I think there's potentially value there but I'm I am yeah like you said John like my my ah like fg is pretty low. Still it's just like a thought you know.

19:58.93
Skyler Katz
Yeah I mean I I think like I feel like a like a 3 on the fg scale about all of this I mean I feel like an like an 8 on getting rid of the backlog. But um, you know like in this I think we we tend. To find ourselves setting a priority and and leaving it at that priority and if something's urgent, but it's not actually due for four weeks then like it's not really urgent and it shouldn't be marked as urgent. Um, and if we're gonna. All decide that we're going to work on. Um you know, project a together then we just filter the backlog to project a's tickets and work on what's urgent but I like the idea of putting in things putting in. So. Ah, handful of specific items and then pulling everything else off of what's truly like what is truly important right now. Um, and you know you've had this concern that we're not going to the backlog enough and I think part of that is that we're just like we're not looking at the backlog. But if we. Getting rid of like preputting everything in a sprint you'd be more inclined to look through the backlog. Also we don't look at the backlog because it's not important because if it was important then like the team you know all of the various other people at the company would be would be bringing it up again.

21:17.44
Chris Morrell
Yeah, now that.

21:30.86
Skyler Katz
Um.

21:32.99
John Drexler
And that's where you get into the some of the wish list stuff helps us clarify a lot of that. Um I do think like ah I guess part of why I think this conversation is interesting is because it does drive us back to one of the.

21:34.98
Skyler Katz
Yeah, yeah.

21:47.36
John Drexler
1 of the main things I guess we've all been talking about. Well we're circling around right now is the backlog. Um, and I think that basically like in terms of problems. This is what I've been saying for a little while is like as in terms of problem solving product processes at ah at internachi there's a lot of problems that I think you guys don't really have. Um, and so like right now you're in a position where like I think sprint to sprint you guys are working on the most important stuff that you guys want to be working on. Um and then also you know sprint to sprint like the ah estimation stuff is going well you're getting most of the stuff you commit to done. And um, you're hearing the needs from other teams and prioritizing that stuff appropriately. So like there's a whole bunch of stuff that I'm like this is not a problem to solve really the big thing that is clearly the problem to solve is like in order to have a good sprint or even if we. If you theoretically moved away from sprints you still need this like giant list of good stuff that's ready to work on that is hopefully prioritized in a reasonable way in order to have that you have to have like sat down and talked about like is this ticket too big. Are we sure we want to do this What's the priority is there a due date. And like let's talk through some implementation questions together. Um, and that's the real bottleneck and I guess like that's to me where this why this conversation is is good is because it drives it back to that because it's like in terms of like.

23:15.73
John Drexler
Spending all of your time doing like really valuable stuff that actually solves problems. It's like all the time that you're writing code or pairing. Great. It's crystal clear to me how that solves problems and that's really good doing a retro I'm a huge fan of Retros it's like totally clear to me how that's like super useful the like estimations in sprint planning I'm like I could take it or leave it I don't really care. The thing that really matters though is like that is is like the only missing part is like I is queuing up tickets that are like really ready to be worked on and I would argue that we are low on that time right now. Ah and we don't spend enough time there. And instead we do spend like an hour or an hour and a half or whatever estimating in sprint planning. So I'm like if you just took all the time we were estimating in sprint planning and instead put that into like scoping out clarifying more tickets that to me sounds like a way more useful. Time.

24:10.87
Chris Morrell
Yeah I mean that's a compelling argument for sure.

24:13.80
Bogdan Kharchenko
I mean I will have to push back a little bit because I feel like you know when we're doing our split sprint planning I feel like we've already at that point have already ironed out some tickets. Yeah, there are some tickets that come in kind of last minute but. You know for the most part we already have like a pretty good idea of you know what is coming up on on a pipeline and I think like 1 of the benefits I feel like of like preparing for a sprint even is even like going back to your backlog and reffamiliarizing yourself with. What tickets need to be worked on maybe checking in with the necessary people to figure out like hey is this still important because it was important on a backlog a week or two ago. But like we want to put it on a sprint now is this still an issue like it's ah, an opportunity for you to kind of get some feedback before you start. Working on it. Maybe there's something else. That's more important now. Um, and I feel like you know 1 issue that we've also had for example, like planning out or shaping tickets far in advance is that we'll we'll work on a ticket. We'll you know shape it. Put in a backlog and then like two months goes by. We're looking at this ticket we don't know like if it's english or russian or another language. It just looks foreign. You know so it's also very difficult tradeoff to go and put everything into a backlog where.

25:44.80
Bogdan Kharchenko
Instead we could be like shaping pre pre-shaping tickets for like the next sprint or 2 and then you know that like in the next week or two. We're going to put this stuff into this bucket. The entire team is kind of aware of how much work that's going to take in terms of you know effort. And then you can group similar tickets which I do agree you know like if you were you know so you don't have to do a lot of context switching I think that's pretty clear when so I think that's my kind of position on it like being able to prepare for tickets and plan them for the next sprinter 2 um, rather than like shaping a bunch of stuff putting in in a bucket somewhere in some backlog and you know whenever it comes up. It comes up but you know so.

26:28.24
Chris Morrell
Yeah I mean that's definitely I think I think we can all agree that like the farther out into the future things get the less certainty we have right? like um, it is easy as developers to imagine that we're. We're going to know what we care about in a year or whatever but we basically never are right? and so I I think that's I think that's ah, a compelling argument that like when you think about things in cycles. It does put you in a position to be like let's. Let's give more time and attention to things that we know are going to happen soon versus um, you know I can see losing a little bit of track of that I I think that there are ways around it potentially um. But do think that's an interesting point. So.

27:25.17
Bogdan Kharchenko
But if I may say one more thing I feel like this is the main difference between like agile development and say waterfall development like we don't plan this huge project for a year you know we plan little chunks and we kind of like um. You know adapt as we go, you know this feature was cool but we have to shape it you know change the direction of it because otherwise if we preplan everything we're gonna get into a situation like with waterfall development where we basically are writing code. That nobody cares about because the requirements changed halfway through the development cycle because we pre-plan. Everything.

28:07.21
Skyler Katz
Um, yeah I mean.

28:07.93
John Drexler
It's interesting because like the with sprint planning stuff like part of why people talk about agile and sprint planning is like oh it's so adaptable and flexible. But I'm Like. What could be more adaptable and flexible than not even committing to a sprint and just doing the next most important ticket.

28:22.98
Bogdan Kharchenko
Ah, well you know you need some structure and sorry Skyler for interrupting a second time. Yes.

28:24.96
Skyler Katz
Um, yeah I mean to like two weeks like two weeks is arbitrary like in two weeks something we started two weeks ago could be like vastly not important. And something else could be way more important and like we don't we. Don't say we're not going to work on it because the sprint is locked like we start working on the most important thing right away and ah and then the sprint has tickets in it and then we get to the end of the sprint and we're like well. We had this other thing but we also had these tickets what if we just didn't have those what if we just didn't have those tickets and to do until you are like all right I finished this ticket today and now I'm looking at like what is the most useful thing I could do next and like. Look at the backlog like look at the top 10 that are finished or like your boss goes on vacation and you just do whatever you want and like you know like that that happens too. Ah.

29:32.56
Chris Morrell
Okay I I think that this gets at um, one of the big questions or 1 of the big sort of like philosophical things that I have here which is you know John you've talked about ah you've talked about how a lot of process comes down to trust. And I think that's true. Um, but I think that for me what I'm looking for out of process is clarity and certainty. Um, and I think that that I think that. In in a lot of ways that comes down to just the way that my brain works um, and um, like you know I have 88 d I need to externalize a lot of information and I need to have systems that I rely on um and in a lot of ways like That's why Skyler when you say let's just delete the whole backlog like my my heart rate like jumped ah significantly is is like I know for me things that are incredibly important. Ah if I don't look at the list and see them. I will totally forget about them. Um, and obviously you know if we're in a better place now where anything new that's gone on to the backlog is prioritized in a way that it's harder to lose track of um.

30:49.60
Skyler Katz
Yeah.

31:00.21
Skyler Katz
I think like I I worked it I worked at a company for for 8 years and like when I first started we were on Trello we had a ton of stuff in backlog. Then we moved to Jira and we moved all that stuff over and then we moved to azure devops and we moved all that stuff over and there were tickets. That like we moved 3 systems over 8 years and we never did it and every time I'm like why don't we delete this like we're not going to We're not going to do it or if we are going to do it. It's going to look vastly different than what was there I think um and like when I say when I say delete like.

31:22.53
Chris Morrell
Yeah, so.

31:33.44
Chris Morrell
Um, it's a security blanket.

31:38.19
Skyler Katz
Linear is not removing that forever like it's just not sitting there taunting you of like this thing that I should be doing but I'm not doing and like is it important well like no one no one in in slack is talking about it like our.

31:43.80
Chris Morrell
Right first.

31:55.28
Skyler Katz
Our customers are members like they're not asking about it in any sort of frequency and when they do like linear search is pretty good and so you you know start typing something in and it'll show up that there was this canceled ticket and you just click on it. Um, but. I think I I recognize like I don't I'm not the I'm not the boss like my own apps have 0 users. So like what it like my process maybe is like not the good process. Ah you know like there's that's totally fair.

32:27.96
Chris Morrell
Um, well I know I mean I think I think you're totally right about a lot of that. Um, but I think that kind of going back to the clarity piece. It's It's kind of like um with traditional or with. With like agile-ish sprint Planning. There's an existing sort of trusted process for like periodically figuring out like what is the stuff that we should be working on and I think that. If we were to commit to a new process that didn't involve sprint planning and at least in the same way. Maybe we don't get rid of sprints entirely. But maybe we reimagine how sprints work my worry is now we've we've given up that like process. And we haven't replaced it with anything new and so I just worry that like you know it's all easy to say well we'll just pick the the highest priority stuff on the list but like now when are we checking priorities when are we looking at due dates when are we like reevaluating that stuff like you need. We would need to replace it with some something new and I don't know what that is I think is is part of it.

33:47.13
Skyler Katz
I mean I think we keep the same meetings we have where we're checking in. You know we meet with all these different teams once a week checking the priority of stuff but we don't ever. It's been a long time since we've kind of gone back to them with things that we. Thinking about doing soon and saying is this still important. We're still just taking in like new important things. Um and like John has helped with this like wish list of here's your top 5 and so if it's a top 5 we're doing it or not doing it. But that's more strategic. Um.

34:24.31
Skyler Katz
My thing is just like pre-putting things on the sprint and then not doing them all because we're doing other stuff like to me. It feels bad like it feels bad to tell the education team like I'm not working on that because I'm working on this and like I'll do it in two weeks

34:42.94
Bogdan Kharchenko
I mean if I could do a complete circle back to before John got here what the process that we used to have was we would put stuff into the triage and then immediately put it on the next sprint. So it's almost like you know you're saying that that's not a good workflow. We should you know instead.

34:43.29
Skyler Katz
When maybe what I'm working on is not important.

35:02.92
Bogdan Kharchenko
You know, kind of like just take the whatever has come up. You know, whatever issue has come up and we shouldn't pre-plan strategically as a team of what to do.

35:11.10
Skyler Katz
We should I think you're I think maybe my point is being slightly mistaken I'm not saying that like we just seat of our pants. Do whatever we want all the time like we are still shaping tickets. The tickets are well shaped I while I think that.

35:15.52
Bogdan Kharchenko
Maybe I'm skewing it slightly. No tickets.

35:29.45
Skyler Katz
And our team like the actual the actual estimation number or size matters less than like if this is too big. It's a sign that we need to keep shaping it more? Um, but like honestly we plan the ticket and then Chris looks at the proposed implementation and goes ah, that's a 4

35:29.84
Chris Morrell
Let's just rewrite everything and go okay.

35:30.30
Bogdan Kharchenko
Yes.

35:37.76
Bogdan Kharchenko
Yeah.

35:39.72
Chris Morrell
Um, yeah, yeah for sure.

35:47.17
Bogdan Kharchenko
And sure sure sure.

35:48.21
Skyler Katz
And then like or oh that's a one and then like the actual estimation part is like not really team led. Also it doesn't need to be because we've just like planned out open this file. We're going to do this like we planned those tickets. Well I think we should do that and we have that ready tag and I my.

35:54.84
John Drexler
Ah.

36:06.56
Skyler Katz
My thing is like we should just be polling from ready not from to do like Ah yeah, that's.

36:09.72
Bogdan Kharchenko
Yeah, so I think part of it I think part of it sounds like you know at the end of the sprint when you have tickets left over you feel psychologically I suppose or whatever that you haven't accomplished the entire thing but I'm here to tell you it's okay to finish second third fifth in a race. The fact of the matter is that you've done it you know because you know you you know the fact that you've ah you know, competed in this sprint is what matters. Ah yeah, no I get it but I feel like you know that itself. Yes I feel like that itself is kind of like.

36:35.36
Skyler Katz
Look I'm a middle child I understand what finishing begin. Third fourth means.

36:42.11
John Drexler
Um.

36:42.45
Chris Morrell
Um, welcome to the motivational section of the program.

36:47.68
Bogdan Kharchenko
The whole idea. It's like yeah, you're not going to win the marathon. Ah maybe you will, but the fact that you've competed and you're walking around with your like you know numbers on your chest or whatever like that itself gives you a lot of vibe at the end of that race like you finished like you've survived the two weeks yeah you didn't finish 100%

36:59.20
Skyler Katz
Um, yeah.

37:06.40
Bogdan Kharchenko
I Feel like that to me doesn't bother me as much. Um I know.

37:06.35
Skyler Katz
But what if we what if we finish every two weeks like I I mean I also think though look like we still meet every two weeks and talk about what went. Well, what didn't go well, it's it's purely the like you know if anything then you're always finishing 100%

37:07.28
Chris Morrell
Um, well, but you're you're telling Skyler to feel something differently.

37:17.44
Bogdan Kharchenko
So sure.

37:24.78
Skyler Katz
Or or not because you're like you know what? like I didn't sleep well like I'm just not like I just I was feeling off the last two weeks but there's not an additional I was feeling off the last two weeks and we said we were going to get 60 points done and we got 40 and like you know there's that additional part.

37:41.40
Chris Morrell
Well I have I have 2 questions for you Skyler like 1 is I think I know the answer to this but like is is the solution if we were to stick with sprints.

37:43.72
Skyler Katz
Um, yeah.

37:56.19
Chris Morrell
To just say the goal is to complete 80% of sprints like does that help at all or does that not help at all.

38:03.48
Skyler Katz
So I mean the goal I know that the goal has never been a hundred percent like the goal. It's all psychological I mean like this is just ah, it's a different. It's a different pace of company like I worked.

38:10.31
Chris Morrell
It's just that psychological thing is still there for you.

38:11.77
Bogdan Kharchenko
Um, um.

38:15.47
Bogdan Kharchenko
I mean.

38:20.93
Skyler Katz
Had a company that was private equity backed and so like there was an expectation of you got to get stuff done and you never got enough done. Um, and that's you know a lot of ah, unlearning from from that to like come to a place where it's just different. Um and so did.

38:30.82
Chris Morrell
Miss Shark

38:40.00
Skyler Katz
I know that the expectation's on 100% it's more like I don't know um like we're not, we're sort of already pulling stuff off of ready when it's important and so then my question is like well why is this other stuff in the sprint then and like maybe two weeks like we've wait like.

38:40.25
Chris Morrell
Um, yeah, no I hear you.

38:53.50
Chris Morrell
Um, yeah.

39:00.30
Skyler Katz
We've shipped too late if we're waiting two weeks

39:03.72
Chris Morrell
Well, my other question was going to be would another way to approach this be like um, it's okay to take things off the cycle right to say like we we thought that this was a plan This was this made sense for this period of time but like.

39:13.31
John Drexler
Totally.

39:21.43
Chris Morrell
Ah, you know is part of this solution just saying like it's normal for things to be removed after the fact like that. In fact, we should be We should be rebalancing this stuff in the middle of the cycle when. If if things look different.

39:42.31
John Drexler
I'll say also I think 1 thing that is surprising or interesting to me about this is that that this part of the this part of it keeps on coming up of like our priorities are changing or like you scope a ticket and then shortly thereafter the priority of that that ticket changes or like. We pull something into a sprint and mid sprint we decide. We don't want to do the ticket I'm kind of surprised by that ah does that come up a lot.

40:05.66
Chris Morrell
Um, well I think that I think that that's ah, really specifically a factor of the way our where our organization is and how we operate and this kind of comes back to one of the questions that came up in New York is like.

40:15.96
John Drexler
And.

40:22.46
Chris Morrell
Internetche you know we've been around for over 20 years and you know we are arguably way way way beyond feature complete as a product right? like ah ah we we encapsulate multiple like whole business models.

40:32.85
John Drexler
Who just.

40:41.22
Chris Morrell
Within our one application. Um, so ah, you know a big part of what we prioritize nowadays is ah like team ah team member requests and and member requests like.

40:43.67
John Drexler
Yep.

40:59.10
Chris Morrell
Ah, because a big priority is making sure that working at Innachi is good and being a member. Atnachi is good right? So our our planning. Yeah, there's you know there's a big portion of our planning that comes down to roadmap and I think that the priority of the roadmap tip tickets.

41:05.67
John Drexler
Are.

41:18.75
Chris Morrell
Don't doesn't typically change but um, over the course of a week you know someone on staff might come to us and say hey this is like ah this is a serious issue that someone just ran into like we need to solve this asap and that that.

41:38.51
Chris Morrell
Reprioritzes all the other like internal tickets that we're dealing with or someone comes back to us and says you know last week I was really frustrated with this. Um, but it turns out like it was just a really bad week for this thing and like it slowed down a ton and like you guys don't have to. You don't have to run to get it fixed in the way that I thought you did before you know those internal requests um tend to shift a lot more quickly than the the roadmap stuff. Um, so I think because of you know one of my ah. My decisions to make sure that we're prioritizing like the experience of working at the company by like really supporting. Ah the the folks who work here and prioritizing like the experience of being a member by really supporting our members like that changes. Um, the way we think about tickets like I think we're probably atypical. You know a typical like a startup is not going. Ah I think ah if you are working in a startup and your priorities are changing like mid cycle. That's a way different thing than like hear. Ah, we're dealing with staff saying like oh this actually was isn't as big of a problem as I thought it was or hey this is a new big problem that I Really if you can need you to just like drop everything and and look at you know.

43:00.10
John Drexler
Hey.

43:00.82
Bogdan Kharchenko
I mean I will say I you know I kind of heard what you said but I feel like we're not unique I feel like all businesses operate in the same way you know priorities shift all businesses of staff and they have customers that use some sort of product and there's an outage or there's something that's going on. You're going to react in the same way. Obviously you know I think like a lot of people want you know Ah, their staff to also have a pleasant experience. You know, supporting using the software and so on and so forth, but you know I think like what I kind of heard from this is perhaps rather than like removing tickets. Maybe we you know, kind of what you suggested Chris earlier is instead of overloading theprintt with points. You know, maybe we trim that by 20% or 30 and then that way there's some room to deal with some of these like urgent requests though you know and we try to bake some of that time in. But. Feel like you know, maybe an additional few extra you know, ah points or tickets. Um, you know could kind of like ease some of this like incompletion. Um pain points. Um you know and I don't know I feel like when I go into a sprint I'm like pretty optimistic. With like yeah of course I'm going to do everything because today is like x day and we have like a whole two weeks and then obviously time goes by and things are more complicated than usually are so um, you know I think like maybe just reducing it by a couple of tickets or points maybe is a potential solution. Okay.

44:33.60
Skyler Katz
Um, I mean I think one one thing about sprints is like at least am I old job like sprints were about reducing risk for the company and so the goal was like whatever you're doing in the two weeks like something can be shipped. Customers customers being your support staff customers being your members like customer. Um I don't really get the feeling like we do sprints to reduce risk um like in the same way I think were. Like we're looking at things just a little bit differently and so part of it is just like is this what if we're not reducing risk like it's it's for focus but I still think you can meet every two weeks to talk about what went well and what didn't and um us.

45:17.70
Chris Morrell
Um, I mean it's focus.

45:23.11
Bogdan Kharchenko
Yes, without having sprints right.

45:27.84
Skyler Katz
Ah, it's so it's so funny because like at sprint planning. Ah last sprint Chris you were on vacation and me and Bogden and John were meeting and we like pulled some stuff into the sprint it was looking good and bogin was like ah so optimistic and like kept wanting to put more stuff in and I was like I don't think. We need to like put more stuff in like other stuff's going to come up and Biden's like no this one's good like let's pull it over and like we have we have more than normal like in the to do column at the end of this and it just it's because other stuff did come up and we worked hard. Um, you know while what we're gone. It was so funny.

45:56.11
John Drexler
Yeah.

45:58.44
Chris Morrell
Ah.

46:02.60
Bogdan Kharchenko
Um, now.

46:03.20
John Drexler
I will say sorry I just interrupted you my bed. No just it's it's funny how I ah it This is part of why like unique personalities This is part of why I think every product process needs to be a little bit bespoke and like hand.

46:05.57
Skyler Katz
Ah, that's okay.

46:20.55
John Drexler
You know handmade is that ah the personalities matter right? like Skyler's like look like I get bummed out when there's stuff that wasn't done and so it's like okay, well like an easy adjustment is like let's just do ah let's like commit to a little bit less and then.

46:23.53
Chris Morrell
Yeah.

46:36.80
John Drexler
When you get done early pull something off the backlog because psychologically that feels better for one of the 3 of us and like whatever that's a compromise we can make um and it could be that on another team you have like 5 bogdens and it's like no let's set like ah like a really ambitious goal and then you know that'll make everyone feel good, but it's like there's not It's one way is not right or wrong. It's just sort of like whatever makes the team feel good as long as we're all still working.

46:56.25
Bogdan Kharchenko
No.

46:59.18
Chris Morrell
Ah I'm realizing we we have not introduced nearly enough steak knives. That's the problem like ah you know well you know the top The the.

47:05.55
John Drexler
Yeah, exactly.

47:07.63
Bogdan Kharchenko
Steak knives for what am I missing something how how does steak knives work.

47:14.94
Chris Morrell
The top ticket closer gets a set of steak knives at the end of the.

47:17.39
Skyler Katz
And yes.

47:17.88
John Drexler
Yeah, so.

47:18.30
Bogdan Kharchenko
Oh yes, yes yes I mean you know I think like having a goal to chase you know is um I don't know to me at least it's always kind of been like you know why did I do say Motorcycle racing right? Like why am I doing programming Well I need to like close a ticket. I Need to do this thing like there is a goal you know it's like if I ever want to become a doctor I can just go from sitting at my computer or whatever and become a doctor like I need to first get ah you know the goal is finish high school then the goal is go to college then do this class then do that class like these incremental steps. Um, and you have to set yourself up like all right? Well I Want to be a doctor. You know you can't just say oh yeah, like I'm going to eventually become this thing. Ah, whatever that is and obviously it may or may not work out but you know I think like having a priority. Um. You know a goal in mind with some sort of like timeframe makes it you know converts like you know instead of goals being dreams like goals being a reality. Basically.

48:25.80
Chris Morrell
Um, would you there you go.

48:25.44
Skyler Katz
Um, and what if your what if your goals were day by day like us a day a daily sprint.

48:29.27
Bogdan Kharchenko
We daily goals sure but it's it's kind of like okay well today my goal is to go to gym tomorrow. Um, my goal is to go partying you know I mean that's like um I don't know a pretty straightforward thing whereas like you know you can be like okay well my game plan. For next two weeks is to do these things obviously every day I'm going to have to do something you know? Ah, but it's kind of like you have like a bigger picture like you know that Xyz kind. It's like a chunk of work I don't know at least that's how I put in my brain. It's you know I think Chris said earlier about like. Putting stuff into boxes and I don't know maybe I share the same kind of like mentality. But you know I like to put stuff into this bucket and then when that bucket's done I'm done. It's like I know it's like I know I have to write an essay for tomorrow's report. You know like I'm gonna do it. You know, like and and be done with it whether it's in the beginning of two weeks or the day before I just know that that's kind of how it is rather than eventually.

49:35.62
Chris Morrell
Do you do you feel like roadmaps could ah kind of scratch that same itch for you like a larger does it have to be two weeks or could it be like could you find satisfaction in saying like okay or or maybe not roadmaps but projects like. We've got this project. You know we've got these 3 projects on the roadmap and this is the one we're working on and like it's got this milestone like the goal for you is to hit that milestone. Um, even potentially setting like a deadline for it like.

50:01.81
Bogdan Kharchenko
Um.

50:12.80
Chris Morrell
Would that kind of scratch that same itch. Do you think? and.

50:15.78
Bogdan Kharchenko
Ah, yeah I mean as long as you know I think like 1 it's like I think the other question is like why is it two weeks right like why is this like proven methodology cru that you just kind of mentioned is two weeks why is 2 weeks the recommended kind of timeframe. Well it turns out that it works for a lot of people mentally that it's not like. A six month sprint or it's not like a 2 3 month sprint where you kind of set this work and then you go on working it's it's smaller chunks. You know you broke down a three month project into like these small little intervals. You call you can call them milestones if you want ah but you know, ah. The sprints you know unless you're working on a single project then it's all the same milestone but I feel like when you have these two week increments I don't know mentally it just works and then you know.

51:05.70
Chris Morrell
Um I don't know dhh would ah disagree with you. They're they're huge fans of six six -week cycles stuff.

51:13.62
Bogdan Kharchenko
I mean maybe that works for them. But I also seen the use a windows computer I don't really trust him? Um, but you know I don't know I think that that has been working for me ever since I got you know, introduced to like this agile methodology I had like a really good. Project manager in my life. 1 of my first jobs and he like opened my eyes to like how you can you know hack the world. Basically it's not just programming. It's like anything. Ah you know you can just go put this put this stuff into two weeks just knock it out. You know Pat yourself on a back and then keep going because you know it's it's very hard to I don't know do like a daily thing I feel like you're going to get burnt out with them some sort without some sort of like finish line. You know there is the idea of a finish line. Think is the key and it has to be like fairly quickly. Um, it cannot be like a 1 year finish line. It has to be like regular. So anyway, that's my my thing with 2 experience I think they work really well. Um.

52:21.13
John Drexler
I think I'm basically ozar go ahead. Chris.

52:22.73
Chris Morrell
Okay, so well I'll just say 1 thing which is like kind of coming back to the coming back to the premise of the podcast right? Like what's the absolute best way to do things. Um I actually think there's kind of like a goal that we are setting out to figure out which is just like. You know what is the right way for our team. Specifically you could argue like what's what's a great approach for a small team. That's not that that's not beholden to like um demont demonstrating their value to an executive team that like. Can you can basically decide within themselves like what process is effective for us to deliver value quickly right? and do it in a way that feels good for the people on the team right. So like I just think it's interesting to step back for a second and say if that's our goal. Um, you know are there any changes that we want to try ah that we can like potentially even come back and report on after a month ah to to say like this is. We're gonna we're gonna question some things and try some things but we're going to hold on to some that we we really like um so I'd like to sort of frame the rest of the conversation in that. But John I'll I'll let you ah jump into what you were going to say with kind of that in mind.

53:47.47
John Drexler
It's related. It's related. So I guess I'd say um it again I guess coming back to the framework that I always come from which is like what problem are we solving here the sprints like they solve enough problems and they don't. Take up. They don't come at a high cost to us right? to continue doing them. There's not It's not like hurting us to do them really? but so and they make like Boggedden feel better. They are an easy way to group tickets and to say like we're working on this project right now. Great. Let's group these. You know these tickets into this sprint like and it doesn't come at a high cost. We could adjust it a little bit to say let's let's bite off a little bit less because then that also accommodates skyyler's feelings about it and it's like great like I I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other I'm like I could be perfectly fine. It's just like leave it mostly as is but do a little bit less. Um, the the thing to me that's that's interesting about it from a process standpoint is that I believe the real like the real juice is having that big list of ready tickets and I think that if you have a sufficiently large. Like good list of ready tickets sprint planning actually is a thing that can take about 5 minutes because what's the what do you need to? do you have you have like 200 points of good tickets to pull from and you're like well okay, well we're going to pull 60 off this list. Great.

55:20.84
John Drexler
Let's pull the highest priority ones group them a little bit thematically and we're done. You know so what's interesting to me is like again I still think it pushes back to the actual like what changes would you make to sprint planning I'm like I don't know that I'd make that many it sounds like we have 1 idea which is just like do a little bit less. Um. And estimating again I'm like I could take it or leave it. We're not spending that much time specifically on estimating we're more talking about like what is the ticket. So I don't I don't feel. There's like a really big problem to solve there I think all of this just keeps on pointing back to the bigger problem which is like. We typically have like just enough tickets and ready to fill out a sprint which means we don't have enough to have the luxury of being picky in what we pull into a sprint and that to me like that's actually the 1 real problem that ah I think is like worth solving. Here I guess.

56:20.36
Chris Morrell
Yeah, no I appreciate that I think I think to Bogdan's point earlier I would push back a little bit and say like you want a big enough list that you can ah reasonably pull things from it. But you don't want. You don't want to get that list so big that you're like really planning out tickets that you're not likely to get done in the next few months you know because it's like I think it's a balancing act I think we do a really good job of shaping tickets right now I mean honestly one of our problems is we. Spend a ton of time shaping tickets. Ah, and it's you know that's something that I want to figure out because I I think it's been really valuable but we do spend a lot of time. Ah, you know in in group meetings kind of figuring out these like gnarly tickets. Um, but I don't. Yeah I don't want to go so far that we have tickets that are like at the bottom of that list that aren't going to see the light of day for 5 6 7 8 cycles. You know what? I mean so it's like it's finding a middle ground of like there should be a good prepared shaped backlog to pull from. But you don't want to spend so much time on the backlog that you're like planning things that aren't going to aren't going to get done anytime soon. It's like a balancing act. Yeah, yeah, that's fine.

57:40.68
Skyler Katz
I mean 200 points though. That's like three and a half sprints so at any given time having 20200 points I mean 1 thing I will say is that putting less in the sprint to me feels like the worst of both worlds because. Because what would happen for me I think is like well the sprint's done and now I can coast because like we agreed to doing 40 points and so now like I'm I'm just going to coast as opposed to like well there's no like. We want to do 60 points as sprint and so like we're going to pull tickets in as we determine that they're important ah like I would rather have tickets left over than like pull 40 because then you get like the psychological push of like here's the sprint and then being like well we agreed on 40 and I did forty so now like.

58:33.54
Bogdan Kharchenko
I.

58:35.11
Skyler Katz
I'm just gonna I'm gonna coast here for.

58:36.40
Chris Morrell
Um, what if it was even less though. What if it was like we've committed to these 4 tickets for the sprint because like as a team we know that these 4 really like either these 4 really push us in the right direction like sort of thematically or they're really timely.

58:46.47
Skyler Katz
Yeah, that feels better.

58:53.73
Skyler Katz
Yeah, like that that would feel better because it's clearly not like the goal these are like these have to get done and everything else we're pulling in and we're still aiming for 60 points at the end of the sprint but we're reprioritzing what's important.

58:54.63
Chris Morrell
Right? Or both like that's yeah.

59:11.79
Bogdan Kharchenko
I Think part of part of my pushback against that idea is you know I'll ah just give you kind of like what happened in less like two sprints right? So we've been working on this migration project. Everybody knows where it is and you know we've ah.

59:12.51
Skyler Katz
Every few days.

59:26.91
Bogdan Kharchenko
Ah, planned out like we we probably got like fifteen twenty tickets that were put into a backlog or in in this ready state and when we finish that sprint if you recall Skyyler that's Sprint planning probably took 10 minutes we knew as a team what we're going to do for the next cycle.

59:38.65
Skyler Katz
Are.

59:44.69
Bogdan Kharchenko
I literally selected 15 tickets and brought them over to the next cycle We as a team mentally prepared ourself. What everybody else is going to do and I feel like there's a lot of benefit to kind of group. These tickets get the kind of like the. You know, whatever the marines do like who you are or whatever they're they're saying kind of like game Plan. We're like all this is the Mission. You know it's not like this is the mission and we're going to do these extracurricular activities. Ah whenever you know you kind of you can get lost I feel like as a you know? um.

01:00:11.29
Skyler Katz
Sure.

01:00:19.43
Bogdan Kharchenko
Being part of a team. You know like you don't know what the actual you know, environment looks like or so you know however to phrase that.

01:00:27.17
Skyler Katz
We we brought over all those tickets there our sprint ends tomorrow and we have 25 points in to do.

01:00:33.20
Bogdan Kharchenko
And I'm okay with that.

01:00:38.56
Skyler Katz
But I know I oh man. Ah and like it doesn't it doesn't I don't lose sleep over it like it doesn't it doesn't stretch and stress me out like it you like it used to um, but like.

01:00:40.19
Chris Morrell
Um, ah for those who aren't watching the video Skyler's face right now.

01:00:49.47
Bogdan Kharchenko
Yeah.

01:00:56.72
Skyler Katz
Why did we bring over tickets like you we brought over so many tickets and I think you even said Well we're not going to get to it all. But I want to put it in here and I'm like well what just.

01:01:04.49
Bogdan Kharchenko
Yeah, dude, you know why because I don't want to work on like say the same type of ticket all the time I want to have some bug fixes I want to do this that third and you have some variety but you still kind of have an idea like all right. This is what we're going to do and um.

01:01:13.43
Skyler Katz
Yeah.

01:01:19.88
Bogdan Kharchenko
You know I also will say the other thing is because ah Chris has been out for the last part of the sprint you know when we estimated those tickets. We've kind of estimated with his ability from the sprint before so I totally get that part and so Chris by the end day today. But.

01:01:32.10
Skyler Katz
Totally. Ah yeah.

01:01:38.53
Bogdan Kharchenko
But the end of spring day I need you to finish 25 points please.

01:01:42.57
Chris Morrell
Ah, no problem just I just have to finish this open source thing real quick.

01:01:43.27
John Drexler
Um, well this does I mean it raises an interesting. Yeah.

01:01:44.59
Skyler Katz
Um, yeah, yeah. Yeah I mean we have 92 points scoped for this cycle even though normally we do sixty because like we just put in so much whereas like we could have just had all of that in ready and pulled over because we've we've are going to. We're on track to complete.

01:01:51.37
Chris Morrell
Oh my God so.

01:01:55.56
Bogdan Kharchenko
Um, I know but but check it.

01:02:06.89
Skyler Katz
60 points roughly. It's just ah I I think I I think I see the ready tag and you see the to do tag I think we see those as the same thing but we each see them differently.

01:02:06.95
Bogdan Kharchenko
Yes.

01:02:20.91
Bogdan Kharchenko
Sure yeah I mean I I personally never go to that ready thing unless like I can't find anything on my board like I love the you know the cam band style like layout I hate going looking up and down the list I need to go ah, you know left to right. And that's just how my brain processes it like I need to move this box from here to there and that to me gives me like a lot of pleasure and if I have to go to another view and then put it here and move it. There. It's a lot of work so I would much rather like pack the sprint and under achieve then. Underpack it and feel done kind of like you said then you feel kind of like cruise in our coast and so I don't know that's just the way my brain works I think maybe part of the problem is is that so what.

01:03:08.16
John Drexler
Well and I think it's worth like I mean it could just be worth defining as a team. What what is the goal there is like is the goal to to set the exact right number is the goal. We're just going to put in here. What we? What's like the really. Feels like there's 3 versions of this is like there's like put in the exact right number of what we think we're actually going to do. There's pull in 4 tickets that are just like the things that we know have to get done in this sprint and then everything else is just pulled off of ready or number 3 is like it sounds like and I don't want to put words into Bognan's mouth but it's like It's almost like the the whole like okay our mindset of like you set a goal with the assumption that like if you hit 70% that was success ah because like you want to set ambitionious. You want to be in the habit of like setting ambitious goals. So then it's like this is what Daniel and I do is like we set ambitious goals for the quarter and then it's like if we hit 70% that means like. Did a pretty good job if you had a hundred it was like too low of a goal It's like those are 3 reasonable ways of doing it but like ah you guys should probably all be on the same page about which one you choose right.

01:04:16.38
Chris Morrell
All right I have 2 thoughts one is I think these 70% target is b s you just renamed 100% to 70% just putting that out there. Um, but ah, yeah, yeah, sure.

01:04:28.59
John Drexler
Ah, it. But it's I mean all of these are psychological tricks right? It's just another psychological trick.

01:04:30.96
Bogdan Kharchenko
Yeah, but exactly what what? John just said he was like if you hit a hundred percent then your goal was too low I feel like that resonates with me a lot and.

01:04:42.75
Chris Morrell
Um, but the other thing that is kind of an interesting like experiment is what if we only put tickets for Bogden on the sprint and I'm dead serious here like what if we did one cycle and.

01:04:55.39
Skyler Katz
Um, that's so funny. Yeah.

01:04:56.10
Bogdan Kharchenko
Ah, let's do it I mean let's go Yes, let's do it I don't like sticks. So don't don't bother.

01:04:58.64
John Drexler
Now there's a tailor made process. Ah.

01:05:00.71
Chris Morrell
And this is this we could make we could make it a friendly competition I'll go by I'll go buy a set of steak knives. Let's see. Ah.

01:05:03.92
John Drexler
I.

01:05:12.20
Chris Morrell
Ah, let's let's see like what happens in terms of like the final number of closed tickets on the sprint ah across those two I mean I don't want to I don't want to put you guys in that.

01:05:18.69
Bogdan Kharchenko
Okay, I mean I'm game I mean listen Chris Chris I I mean we can do we can do it. It sounds like Skyler is actually up for a competition which I would think he would not be but.

01:05:25.23
Skyler Katz
We've never we've never ah competed ticket to ticket. But you know I'm used to it. Ah.

01:05:37.22
Bogdan Kharchenko
You know I'm totally game for it. Ah like let's go I think okay.

01:05:37.32
Skyler Katz
Um, ah I mean I'm not I'm not huge competition unless it's board games but you know I can I can do my fair share of tickets if we need to.

01:05:45.33
Chris Morrell
Well I don't I don't I I you know I thought I think it's funny I don't want to put you in a position to compete because obviously like that's even if it even if it would be totally fine and fun for a cycle like it's also not necessarily like. Then useful data for us because it's like under a different set of of circumstances. But I would I would be interested I mean I think it's kind of a fun idea to say like let's try the 2 methodologies actually at the same time and like get to the end of the cycle and see like.

01:06:08.14
Skyler Katz
Death.

01:06:22.80
Chris Morrell
Kyler was that was it better was it actually better for you to do it that way or are there things about like sprint planning that you missed and like you know, bogged in is that like is it possible to sort of have a cycle that's mostly like where. Most of the stuff that's planned out you know is like stuff that you're going to be taking on. Um I know it. It kind of sounds fun I don't know. Yeah.

01:06:43.59
Bogdan Kharchenko
Yeah.

01:06:49.89
Skyler Katz
Yeah I mean I don't actually know in practice if it would be that useful unless in our daily standups we're talking about what in ready is is the priority. Um, like if we aren't.

01:07:03.52
Chris Morrell
But.

01:07:07.44
Skyler Katz
Ah, we don't if we're not having those conversations like then we're like we're having that conversation once every two weeks which is totally fine because we're planning on stuff going into a sprint so like we'd have to we'd have to change some process to like.

01:07:13.73
Chris Morrell
So right.

01:07:26.00
Skyler Katz
Be checking in regularly with taking that hour long meeting and splitting that up amongst ten days of time. Um, otherwise were yeah.

01:07:33.54
Chris Morrell
Sure yeah I mean we could spend a little time and stand up doing that I mean just to for the listeners kind of ah backstory. You know we used to. We used to do a more traditional standup that was like you know. what are you working on what are your blockers. What do you like? What did you work on before what are your blockers. What are you? What are you doing next and I I think that for a small team that just felt so kind of like redundant and and kind of like a useless process to be like yeah I'm working on the same thing that we all talked about yesterday. You know? or yeah I'm working on that thing that we're all well aware of that's on this on this cycle is like the next to do so we kind of moved away from that and and just like think of Standup as a time to check in and and have a little social interaction and like. Actually talk about anything that's like on people's minds. Um, but for for two weeks we could go back to like let's actually do a little like um process stuff in in standup if that if that's useful.

01:08:39.74
Skyler Katz
Yeah I mean always down to try something. Try something new.

01:08:44.53
Chris Morrell
Um, yeah yeah I think it's an interesting experiment I like I mean I think the thing that I do like about that I that I so I still want to figure out is I do think it's it. It's nice. To have something that points us in all in the same direction. You know I think that's been like a good change for us and that that could just be like at the beginning of the sprint we say you know for the next two weeks we're mostly working on this project right? or we're splitting up. Across these 2 projects or whatever we you know? whatever we would have done for the planning just do that more at the high level. Um, but that's something that I'd want to make sure we didn't lose sounds fun.

01:09:27.80
Skyler Katz
Totally I think I think it will I think it will be fun I Also think it will be a disaster to do two different methodologies at the same time but like I I am definitely up for trying it correct.

01:09:39.20
John Drexler
I Think the team's so small. It won't really matter like I can't imagine any like severe negative consequences of this you know? Yeah yeah.

01:09:43.69
Bogdan Kharchenko
It's also true.

01:09:45.34
Chris Morrell
Right? right.

01:09:46.85
Skyler Katz
Yeah I don't think it'll be negative I think it'll just feel a little bit manic to be like but ah, that's true bogner is going on vacation.

01:09:52.75
Bogdan Kharchenko
So I'm going on vacation soon and you guys can try it then Ah, ah yeah.

01:09:54.46
John Drexler
Yeah, maybe well but Bo it's on vacation. We just try like like experiment with like a free for all sprint of like it's not you know, just pull tickets off check in before you you know say.

01:09:56.65
Chris Morrell
Ah.

01:10:03.55
Chris Morrell
Yeah, yeah.

01:10:11.14
John Drexler
Send a quick message say hey I'm but to go do one ninety seven is that cool you know and then just do it.

01:10:14.90
Chris Morrell
Um, yeah, yeah, that'd be interesting to you.

01:10:15.57
Skyler Katz
Yeah I'm I'm tempted to write a ah script to linears api. It's just like cancel all backlog tickets older than 6 months and see if Chris ever even noticed this.

01:10:23.86
Chris Morrell
Um, ah.

01:10:24.67
Bogdan Kharchenko
I'm sure you could just I'm sure you could go in there. You don't even have to write the api just go in select all and delete it and call it a day.

01:10:27.33
John Drexler
Um.

01:10:32.30
Chris Morrell
I I.

01:10:32.47
John Drexler
That's True. It'd probably be easy I Still think there's other ways of approaching that because I think like I conceptually I'm aligned skyyler. But I Also I think there's that there's other ways to like. Approach it where like you could. Also for example, like remove priority from all of them and just and say then like if we're going to like really like actually seriously reconsider one of these it needs to get put back and for the listener. There's a good triage process At. chi right now where like when you apply the template of a triage ticket. It throws it into triage to be reviewed by the team and then also like applies a template where you need to write a problem statement and do all this with other stuff. So like I I Still think that could be an interesting idea is like leave them there and if something's sitting in the backlog with no priority and no estimate. It Ah you know, functionally kind of is canceled until somebody goes in there and like grabs it and then puts a priority on it makes it into a real ticket puts it properly through the triage process and then it can become a real ticket. Um, so I don't know I think there I think there are other ways of approaching that. But I.

01:11:41.87
Chris Morrell
The The. The other thing that I was thinking about doing and I I may very well just do this now is like I was thinking about just creating a new team called like ideas or whatever and just move everything you know all the old backlog tickets over there. That's just like yeah we are like well.

01:11:47.23
John Drexler
I Feel you.

01:12:06.22
Chris Morrell
Hell we could even call it. Graveyard. You know like we are just acknowledging that these are like we're not looking or thinking about these at all right now we're not necessarily like giving up on Them. We're just acknowledging that these are like thoughts that people had that maybe. Worthwhile to like sort of Scan through from time to time to see if like any if there you know because I this has happened this is not like theoretical that like I've looked at old old tickets and been like oh yeah, like we thought about this um and had kind of an interesting approach and. Now we're talking about it again and like some of those thoughts are applicable right? or even even more abstractly just like this the solutions that we were proposing to this idea. Um or the way we were thinking about this idea applies to this like more broad or more. Narrow thing that we're talking about now and so I do think like having that stuff there to to scan from time to time has a little bit of value and maybe the maybe the point is just to say like be really honest, just kind of like the 4 light bulbs. It's like we're being really honest with ourselves about. Where these tickets Stand. We're not pretending like they're in queue to be worked On. We're just like this is a place to look from time to time.

01:13:29.55
Skyler Katz
Yeah I mean the downside of moving it to a different project or team is that then like the searchability you'd have to click over to it to be like did we do this before versus just canceling the ticket and then un cancelling it when we want to do it again. But.

01:13:42.11
Chris Morrell
Um.

01:13:48.00
Chris Morrell
Right.

01:13:48.56
Skyler Katz
Ah I recognize that my brain sees canceled different than your brain sees canceled. So like I that's a big that's.

01:13:54.10
Chris Morrell
Um, well I think you you lose you lose some metadata right? because then there's there's no distinction between we talked about this and decided that we're not doing it versus we didn't do it by default right. And think that there is a distinction between those 2 things.

01:14:12.21
Skyler Katz
But when it comes to something coming back up in the future does the distinction matter.

01:14:19.56
Chris Morrell
Ah, well, it's not around coming back from the future. It's like I don't want to go look through old old tickets that we like closed because we're never going to do I Only want to go look through old tickets that like.

01:14:21.83
John Drexler
Are.

01:14:34.27
Chris Morrell
Just never got around to like I don't want to sift through the noise of like tickets that we canceled intentionally to see if there are any gems in the tickets that just like we never got to.

01:14:43.72
John Drexler
And that's where I think honestly the status that they're already in which is backlog. It just is already surfing this function right? The backlog is the graveyard.

01:14:54.76
Chris Morrell
Let's try right.

01:14:56.13
Bogdan Kharchenko
Yes.

01:14:57.10
Skyler Katz
Yeah I think I think there's something that like would be interesting for linear to do where like if a ticket has a due date that as it gets closer to the due date the priority automatically like starts to rise and if a ticket is medium.

01:15:07.26
Chris Morrell
That would be cool. Yeah.

01:15:10.47
John Drexler
That'd be cool. Yeah.

01:15:12.62
Skyler Katz
And has no like if it's medium or low and it has no due date that like as time goes on it goes from medium to low and low to none like and if it's high if it's high and there's no due date then like it's just slowly gets cooler. Ah.

01:15:29.22
Chris Morrell
Ray.

01:15:30.98
Skyler Katz
But if it has a due date then things start to ramp up because like that's that's where like we don't always reset the priority. Um, and some of that it would be interesting if if like the tickets were moving because we'd see like oh this used to be high and now it's not.

01:15:31.70
Bogdan Kharchenko
That's pretty cool.

01:15:38.40
Chris Morrell
Right? yeah.

01:15:50.50
Skyler Katz
So like it's just on its own. It's gone lower where um and then you can reset it to high if you need to.

01:15:51.88
Chris Morrell
Right? right.

01:15:56.95
John Drexler
We could ah probably write these scripts in an afternoon right.

01:16:00.54
Chris Morrell
I know I was just I have multiple ah draft attempts at putting together a nice like linear sdk for php because this is like the the thing that that we got so. Screwed by the whole graphql hype you know graphql was was such a interesting cool idea but like it it turns out interacting with graphql in anything other than Javascript sucks. Ah, and so the fact that the linear api is all graphql.

01:16:30.99
John Drexler
Um.

01:16:35.51
Chris Morrell
Is really a bummer if you want to like write scripts in Ph P to work with it. But that said.

01:16:42.56
John Drexler
Well hey, ah Chris um, you want to work on it together because in building paper cuts I am just about to need a phpsdk for linear.

01:16:53.33
Chris Morrell
Yeah I have ah I have a ah work in progress repository already ah somewhere Yeah I don't think it's public but I can I can get you access to it.

01:16:57.18
John Drexler
If you'll go look at it.

01:17:01.84
Bogdan Kharchenko
I Think if you guys set a goal I think you guys can accomplish building this this api for Ph B sure.

01:17:09.81
Skyler Katz
We got to get rid of everything on the sprint because because Chris is it's like Chris on vacation. He's working on the new new linear sdk.

01:17:10.45
Chris Morrell
We'll say we'll say.

01:17:12.49
John Drexler
Ah, we see this set like a nice.

01:17:18.79
Chris Morrell
ah ah yeah don't don't suggest a potential but potential open source project for me to be working on if you want anything else to get done. Um, all right. We have ah Wea have it two o'clock so we actually need to wrap this up. Are there any ah closing thoughts that anyone has.

01:17:28.90
John Drexler
Fill.

01:17:37.24
Chris Morrell
Before we go.

01:17:39.89
Bogdan Kharchenko
No I think this was a lot of fun. Just talk about this I think it was great to know Skyler Chris and John and their feelings about this and and myself you know I feel like you know I feel like everybody thinks the way I think and I think it's been eye opening for me. Ah.

01:17:40.41
Chris Morrell
I I.

01:17:57.88
Bogdan Kharchenko
To realize that people do have other opinions and.

01:18:00.16
Skyler Katz
Yeah I think my opinions are in the minority of most people. Um, but but it is it is there.

01:18:04.83
Bogdan Kharchenko
So fair, fair, okay.

01:18:08.44
Chris Morrell
Um, well I think but ah I think I'm I'm in between I think my opinions are probably in the minority and I also think my opinions are always right? So there you go? um.

01:18:15.54
Bogdan Kharchenko
And.

01:18:15.95
Skyler Katz
Well, that is why you are the boss. So.

01:18:19.23
John Drexler
Well I do think I like the spirit of experimentation and like accommodating people I think there's good ideas here and like it would be fun. It's a fun low-cost experiment to like try at Skyyler's way while Bgdan's gone and also try the like hybrid one where we like give both. Bogden and Skyler what they want at the same time. Ah I think that's a cool idea. Yeah.

01:18:42.35
Chris Morrell
Um, I think we should do um I think we should do 3 experiments and then I think we should record another episode I think we should do one cycle where ah like we we say it's unacceptable to not get every ticket in the cycle done.

01:18:42.94
Skyler Katz
Whatever Square that chaotic by the chaos is that's but just um.

01:18:49.81
John Drexler
Yes.

01:18:58.84
Skyler Katz
Great.

01:19:00.78
Chris Morrell
Right? Where like we we really commit to like we're only going to put as much work in as we actually think is going to get done. We look at our calendars we look at everyone's like schedule for the next two weeks and we say this is like realistic and we're going to try to actually finish it. Then we do one where we put nothing on the cycle and see what happens and only pull from ready and then we do one where half the team does one half the team does does the other and. Or like yeah Skyler does one Biden does the other and I I do somewhere in between. Maybe you know because I'm um, that's true I do whatever. Ah, and we'll see what happens.

01:19:35.98
Skyler Katz
Chris usually does whatever in between anyways like Chris doesn't always follow the sprint. Ah.

01:19:41.80
Bogdan Kharchenko
I was awesome.

01:19:41.99
John Drexler
That's funny. Um one last thought is we can create extra statuses in linear right? I was going to say yeah.

01:19:49.66
Chris Morrell
We can. We could create more backlog statuses so we could create like a graveyard status that's below backlog. Yeah.

01:19:58.59
John Drexler
Couldn't we actually just like tease those 2 things out and then it's like if there's something where we're like oh we definitely want to do that. It's just not ready yet then we still have backlog but then everything else goes to graveyard.

01:20:10.74
Chris Morrell
Yeah, that's an interesting idea. You'll have to look into it. Um, all right guys. It's been a pleasure. We'll ah we'll have to follow up some sometime we'll see but this has been really fun I Hope it's I Hope it hasn't just been like.

01:20:14.29
Skyler Katz
All right.

01:20:15.51
Bogdan Kharchenko
Awesome.

01:20:26.14
Chris Morrell
Totally ah nonsense to everyone else I don't think so yeah, thanks for coming there you go.

01:20:27.95
John Drexler
Yeah I think this is very interesting and thanks for having me feel very honored.