Why won't programmers give useful feedback to upper management?

If you development methodology doesn't already take this kind of thing into account, you are failing as a project manager.

Because programming is not operating a press where at the end of the day I can just say "I used X of raw material and made Y pieces of half-product".
Also, sometimes I may be working on something that's more on the inside of the program so I can't really fire up a new screen or whatever and say "yeah, I did this today".

>>52386186
I have never worked with you personally but not everything is easy to quantify when you don't know how everything should be done.

I often get asked how far I am and is expected to give them a percentage like I would know something like that.

It is a bit easier if it is divided into smaller projects, but exiting problems usually take a couple of days and thus, a percentage every day is hard to estimate.

What I personally prefer is scrum.
We used that (or a version of that, probably, never saw the difference) that worked really well.
We kept everyone informed by having small meetings and then we knew who to go to and how far people were, what was holding them back, etc.

>>52386266
I'm not actually a project manager, I'm the project owner.
>>52386349
>>52386417
We use Scrum, and the programmers I'm complaining about usually have piss easy 1-2 day long stories that were carefully crafted for them, I was a developer in the past I know how a little pressure feels, but going a whole month without giving a report or outright refusting to participate in weekly meetings is just ridiculous, some programmers are just that autistic.

>>52386417
my experience with scrum & scrum """"masters""""
>So what have you done yesterday anon?
>I did this and that
>Any road block?
>Yes
>Let me create a story
>There is no need, I fixed it, as it was a road block
>I see.. What are you gonna do today?
>This and that
>Any road block
>I'll tell you when I get here
Pretty much worthless if you ask me senpai, wasting 30 minutes everyday listening to people's crap for nothing and trying to anticipate things you don't have control over. Pure madness.

>>52386645
scrum meetings is supposed to be short.
Make them do a presentation every 14th day or something then.

>>52386645
Pure madness is not doing anything to measure your projects and try to stay on schedule, sure, it is fun being the cool boss that doesn't helicopters around the development room, but from my experience all that leads to is the programmers browsing 4chan/reddit/facebook/Youtube/whatever wasting their time all day.

Programmer here. I'm dealing with people like you every day at work. We update the oroject's status when we're 100% sure it's working properly and, especially, that's exactly what you asked. Because usually we can't just say "oh it's fine" or "hey anon we're proceeding". There are bugs that could come out of nowhere after the compiling process or during the testing. So unless you want a technical report (which probably you couldn't even read without someone explaining it) just let us do our job.

Fucking normies...

>>52386697
Well, just fire the ones who take too much time resolving their Jira tickets. People have to understand one way of the other when to fuck around and when to work.

>>52386697
Divide and conquer. Smaller tasks == shorter sprints. If you can't Divide it into shorter tasks, don't bother programmers until the sprint is done.

Let them come to you if they need something from you. Be available as project managers.

>>52386589
>scrum
>weekly meetings
Isn't the whole point of scrum to give a daily update on recent progress, blockers, and todo list? Why add weekly updates on top of that?

>>52386645
my experience without scrum & scrum """"masters""""
>"What are you doing, programmer?"
>"I'm swapping all the program's icons with spinning skulls"
>"Why? did the customer ask for that?"
>"No"

That's when I decided I had to hire a project manager.

>>52386589
What information do you expect to obtain from the weekly meetings that you cannot obtain from whatever tool you're using to track completed user stories?

I'm sure you've given them a way to contact you in case they need you, right?

So...? Why waste time with meetings and not just let them develop?

t. Project Owner

>>52386770
Absolutely not. A scrum is not a daily stand up or a status report.

>>52386770
Daily meetings is for people working in the project, weekly/bi-weekly meetings are done for the customers that want to see the project's progress.

>>52386794
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development)#Daily_scrum
>Each day during a sprint, the team holds a daily scrum (or stand-up) with specific guidelines:

>>52386589
>going a whole month without giving a report is just ridiculous
if the management doesn't request one, why would I care?
>refusting to participate in weekly meetings is just ridiculous
agreed.

>>52386645
Sounds like you could glean most of that from the commit logs on the version control, you could watch in realtime as they fuckup, fix the fuckup and then move on.

The madness lies where the people who write the code is in charge of everything.
If the project is big, you should make a plan for the project.
What parts should be created, in which order, how should they be tested, who should write the tests, who should write the tasks etc.
Just tossing people a project they are not ready to handle is just asking for problems

>>52386783
>hires retarded kids for next to nothing
>needs a baby sitter to manage the kids
pick two

>>52386783
>I had to hire a project manager
better than my previous boss who started giving us spreadsheets where we wrote estimated time + actual time spent on task with 15min accuracy

>>52386186
are PMPs really that effective/worth the money?

>>52386865
lol has he never heard of ticketing systems?

>>52386767
Real life experience is worth a lot more, however having the credential will certainly make it easier to find a job as a project manager or change careers.

>>52386910
oh we had a ticketing system too. we were actually supposed to click "started working" and "finished working" every time so it could count the task time down to the second.

Well would you look at that, I actually know what you guys are talking about. Seems like I have learned something at uni after all.