Some things that come to mind:
- burn-down / velocity charts
- retrospectives
- poker sessions
- daily stand-ups
- user stories and related tickets (eg in JIRA)
There’s probably more ...
Perhaps these things are not necessarily meant to make managers happy, though managers do seem to like this stuff.
As a dev, I prefer a more fluid approach without all the rituals. In the start-up I joined a couple of months ago, we don’t deal with any of the above shit. Which of course is sure to change as the company grows, as that seems to happen often.
Our current way of working (remote company, 4 people):
- 2 calls a week, which tend to last about an hour.
- We discuss work for upcoming week or future stuff.
- We try to deliver every week on whatever was agreed upon at start of week.
Actually, previous company I worked at, was a bit bigger (35 people), but also very little rituals, at least for devs. There was a support department that did the JIRA related stuff. And we had like 2 day-long meetings every year to discuss personal goals/work for next half year. But afterwards just a short weekly meeting for team (sometimes lasting only 10 minutes), no stand-ups and such.
- burn-down / velocity charts
- retrospectives
- poker sessions
- daily stand-ups
- user stories and related tickets (eg in JIRA)
There’s probably more ...
Perhaps these things are not necessarily meant to make managers happy, though managers do seem to like this stuff.
As a dev, I prefer a more fluid approach without all the rituals. In the start-up I joined a couple of months ago, we don’t deal with any of the above shit. Which of course is sure to change as the company grows, as that seems to happen often.
Our current way of working (remote company, 4 people):
- 2 calls a week, which tend to last about an hour.
- We discuss work for upcoming week or future stuff.
- We try to deliver every week on whatever was agreed upon at start of week.
Actually, previous company I worked at, was a bit bigger (35 people), but also very little rituals, at least for devs. There was a support department that did the JIRA related stuff. And we had like 2 day-long meetings every year to discuss personal goals/work for next half year. But afterwards just a short weekly meeting for team (sometimes lasting only 10 minutes), no stand-ups and such.