Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

PI is basically a release under Scaled Agile Framework. There is an event at the beginning of the 3-4 month period (or 5-6, depending on how long Finance acts surprised that they have to fund a development project) where the deliverables and time-line are agreed upon. The majority of the development team attends the event onsite to collaborate and plan the work.

PI = 3.14 , you're welcome

"Whats PI?" - Program Excrement, err I mean Increment.

Whats PI?

All the web companies stomp us in everything not only because of modern methods; but because they pay top shelf software developers like we pay AVPs. I have a several friends doing development for Google and Netflix who clear over 300k a year.

Skills really really matter when developing software. A top flight developer is easily worth a dozen green offshore recruits. You get what you pay for.

With all the tools we have for collaboration that we have and tout to our customers why do people have to travel for the PI? Whatever happened to the "eat our own bbq" mantra I used to hear :)

@4idg finance is one of the orgs that would be significantly trimmed under SAFe, which is why you and your SVP are not fans of modern methods for software delivery accounting. Netflix, Amazon, and Disney+ are stomping ATT streaming because we refuse to fully update our methods. If seems obvious now that the real skills modernization should hand focused on finance instead of IT.

@4oib

I wonder if you know that you are not funded in capacity based model. I am from Finance and I do not support it and my SVP doesnt support it.

The reason i do not support capacity based model is that i am asked to figure out a way to identify how much allocation and spend went into each product. Hence, the GL can be reported.

Also I see IT never really released products quickly as you all claim. There are small teams that release products quickly and these teams were releasing irrespective of safe.

Projects that span across multiple teams are stuck with 5 releases an year due to FFA/E2E testing timelines and the wait times cost money.

Safe cuts or a lot of the people whose entire function was to report status of effort and budget. Once the train has been running for several Increments, your headcount is more or less static, so you have a consistent expenditure rate. With SAFe, we were able to merge the project and delivery teams and cut out the orgs whose whole job was to constantly crunch numbers and shift budgets.

The scrum teams should have been unaffected by this, but leadership definitely should have seen the reduced overhead. Overall, the reason Tech Dev was sold to IBM was because the Process Empire at ATT would not budge to align with SAFe. This is a recurring problem with ATT. People have been in their jobs for so long that they don't recognize that they need to change to stay competitive.

SAFE is a total waste of money. They say it’s faster but basically all work has to be done prior to PI to get concurrence in the end of the 2 day PI. So what is it saving? Time? Money? Nothing

@2oss, keeping multiple properties is a good way to ensure you don't have to stay at Motel6 for the PI!

Some of these leaders travel and take care of the properties they bought in the area. In our PI, there are 3 that i know of that volunteers to travel(they are absolutely not needed for PI) so they can take care of the property in the region.

Why not travel if company is paying for it and your boss is vouching for it as your boss got a vacation spot to stay.

The point of safe is for the entire train to be collocated throughout the Increment, not only travel once in a while for the PI Planning event. ATT totally missed the point of safe.

Tech M’s motel 6 smells like stale curry and has bedbugs that need cleaning.

What are some example hotel brands that Tech M uses?

Safe agile is probably the biggest waste of time and money ever. There is such a disconnect between the higher ups and what developers actually need to do to do their jobs efficiently.

These Coaches train AT&T employees and teach that Safe preaches working software, it is not their responsibility to put the code in production.

WHAT?>???!!!

What qualifies working software you may think.. Go Figure!

Not sure what is worse, sitting in those useless meetings or staying in the cheap hotels Tech M uses as "preferred". They're dirty and low budget.

ZZZZZZzzzzzz