"Spark staff get 5 days to consider new job contracts

Forums › Jobs › "Spark staff get 5 days to consider new job contracts - not long enough, says expert"

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#2038086 15-Jun-2018 10:35

blackjack17:

hio77:

Agile in a massive cooperate is a big change..

i do believe agile is a way forward, things do need to break before they improve.

What is Agile?

Google didn't help much

The company I work for has been bleating on about something to do with Agile for the last year and I still have no idea what they are trying to say..
Couldn't really care to be honest, sounds like some buzz word to say they are sorting the crap out but really they are just making up new words and trying to look all fancy and modern while not straitening anything out.

kingdragonfly

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#2038100 15-Jun-2018 11:01

Usually "agile" workplace have morning stand-up meetings.

In theory, these are supposed to last for 15 minutes, but in most organizations they run on to 30 minutes or more.

If you throw a "scrum master" into the mix, it gets really painful.

Great for anyone who loves meetings.

KanBan seems to be the latest incarnation

https://www.agileweboperations.com/scrum-vs-kanban

sidefx

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#2038204 15-Jun-2018 11:32

kingdragonfly: Usually "agile" workplace have morning stand-up meetings.

In theory, these are supposed to last for 15 minutes, but in most organizations they run on to 30 minutes or more.

If you throw a "scrum master" into the mix, it gets really painful.

Great for anyone who loves meetings.

KanBan seems to be the latest incarnation

https://www.agileweboperations.com/scrum-vs-kanban

Just because most people\places misuse the term doesn't mean it's not a valid approach :) Agile done right is a pleasure - 95% of people do it wrong though.

(A lot of places these days have moved to hot-desking, etc and refer to that as an "agile" environment. Quite different to agile project management.)

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
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Hammerer

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#2038240 15-Jun-2018 11:43

kingdragonfly: Usually "agile" workplace have morning stand-up meetings.

In theory, these are supposed to last for 15 minutes, but in most organizations they run on to 30 minutes or more.

If you throw a "scrum master" into the mix, it gets really painful.

Great for anyone who loves meetings.

KanBan seems to be the latest incarnation

https://www.agileweboperations.com/scrum-vs-kanban

Kanban was first introduced to NZ from Japan in the 1970s or early 1980s at the latest, e.g. Toyota NZ was starting into it by then.

It's a key feature of Just-In-Time (JIT) systems primarily used in manufacturing and increasingly common in NZ in the 1980/1990s.

MikeB4

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#2038287 15-Jun-2018 12:34

If the Spark spokesman is being quoted correctly and staff were in fact given five days to consider the new employment agreements then it would be hard to argue that Spark was acting within the spirit of Section 63(a) (2) of the Employment Relations Act.

2) The employer must do at least the following things:
(a) provide to the employee a copy of the intended agreement under discussion; and
(b) advise the employee that he or she is entitled to seek independent advice about the intended agreement; and
(c) give the employee a reasonable opportunity to seek that advice; and
(d) consider any issues that the employee raises and respond to them.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

Wiggum

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#2038301 15-Jun-2018 13:28

kingdragonfly: Usually "agile" workplace have morning stand-up meetings.

In theory, these are supposed to last for 15 minutes, but in most organizations they run on to 30 minutes or more.

If you throw a "scrum master" into the mix, it gets really painful.

Great for anyone who loves meetings.

KanBan seems to be the latest incarnation

https://www.agileweboperations.com/scrum-vs-kanban

Standups should not last more than 10-15 minutes if implemented correctly. if they running for 30minutes or more something is wrong. maybe the teams are too big or something?

Agile approach is good IMO because it allows for short sprints of work which are normally about 2 weeks in length, at the start of each sprint work is planned for that sprint only, and tasks are setup and agreed by each team member to be complete by the end of that sprint. Scrum master is just there to make sure tasks are setup correctly, and setup Sprint goals etc. He/She controls the sprint planning/retro meetings.

Before the Sprint starts there is a sprint planning meeting (whats going to be delivered in this sprint, and whos going to do what). At the end of the sprint there is a retro (a meeting to discuss what went wrong, what to improve for next sprint etc). So not really many meetings at all. 2 main meetings over a 2 week period.

The standups are helpful, because everybody in the team is then made aware of what everybody else is doing, and how they are progressing on their goals for the sprint. Its also an excellent place to learn about new problems etc..

Agile is really good at weeding out the "deadwood" employees from the hard-workers. Its also good because there is motivation for most team members to have their work completed by the end of Sprint. Nobody wants to get to the end of the Sprint and sit with egg on their face and have to explain to the entire team why they did not manage to complete their Sprint tasks. Another good thing is that all team members are treated mostly as equals, just with different roles. Not much of a hierarchy with different levels between employees. No Test managers, jnr developers, snr developer, business analysts roles. Just a bunch of people in a team with different skills, who as a team are able to deliver whats required at the end of Sprint. The team is overall responsible for delivering the sprint goals, not a particular person.

This is the way the IT industry is going IMO. The waterfall approach to software development is dead.

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antoniosk

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#2038325 15-Jun-2018 14:30

I can’t speak for the spark activity, although it is an interesting read.... but I have noticed in the last couple of years that some organisations are trying to employ agile-like principles to non software related functions

Eg marketing activities, contract work, customer campaigns and so on

It sadly sounds like it’s being turned into a management fad.

________

Antoniosk

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#2038327 15-Jun-2018 14:37

kingdragonfly: Usually "agile" workplace have morning stand-up meetings.

In theory, these are supposed to last for 15 minutes, but in most organizations they run on to 30 minutes or more.

If you throw a "scrum master" into the mix, it gets really painful.

Great for anyone who loves meetings.

KanBan seems to be the latest incarnation

https://www.agileweboperations.com/scrum-vs-kanban

Haha, There was a team that used to do that and they would all stand around a whiteboard for 30 minutes staring at the ground thinking of ways to die... Never seen anything as poorly executed or witnessed such a waste of time on a daily basis.

gehenna

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#2038345 15-Jun-2018 15:04

Lot's of agile negativity. It's no different to any framework or methodology. It's only as good as the people using it and their level of buy-in. Tends to be the times it doesn't work so well is because you've got a disengaged team to begin with, it's not agile's fault.

surfisup1000

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#2038346 15-Jun-2018 15:05

For those of you who say they hate spark... i've worked in the telco industry most of my working career... has been absolutely wonderful.

There is one particular psychopath manager who works between the 2 big ones whom I cannot stand, but there is one of those in every workplace.

tripp

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#2038376 15-Jun-2018 16:16

Agile is good in some places, some not so.

Support teams that deal with people can't really do it.

Manager/CEO "Everyone needs to use Agile and sprints"

Support lead "So you saying that we need to do things in 3 week sprints now?"

Manager/CEO "yes"

Support lead "So urgent support issues needs to be planned for the next sprint in 3 - 5 weeks time"

Manager/CEO "no but still use agile"

mmmmhmmmm

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MikeB4

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#2038377 15-Jun-2018 16:19

@surfisup1000my wife has dealings with a lot of Spark staff and she tells me that the staff are used to the constant reviews and restructuring it is just part of the deal working for Spark, also a lot of the folk she has talked to like the agile business practice. She finds the Telcos in general good to deal with and the personnel good to work with. As for the agile working I have never worked in that environment so really have no basis to make an assessment. However with teams I have managed I have always where appropriate had what I called 15 minute start up meetings and the beginning of the day this was well before the "agile" got a name.

As for hating Spark I don't see the need to hate a company, it seems pointless and a waste of emotion. If one does not like working for or dealing with a company move on, life is too short and there are betters ways to waste ones emotions.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

kingdragonfly

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#2038379 15-Jun-2018 16:21

From the urban dictionary

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=optics

"optics"

"What something will look like to the outside world; the perception a public relations person would have on something. First seen (at least by me) in article by Equity Private on finance blog dealbreaker

CEO of Bank: We definitely should have all of our best mortgage brokers to Vegas for the week just like we've done for the last ten years.

PR Flack - yes, but consider the optics."

see also "bad optics" or "political optics"

gehenna

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#2038380 15-Jun-2018 16:22

@tripp while I've never seen the example you're using, I agree it works for some things and not others. Infrastructure projects, for example, which have order and delivery lead times, and provisioning times that can vary, really don't suit the agile approach.

I've never agreed with trying to blanket a single approach on an organisation, be it a framework or a service or a vendor. My view is always that you should use the right tool for the job.

smalltrader

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#2038397 15-Jun-2018 17:21

Being Agile does not mean you must follow Scrum process to the letter. In fact quite the contrary, people are encouraged to take a common sense approach to adapting work practices to meet an outcome. No one is saying there is only one way of doing things and no one is saying throw away all the tried and tested good project management practices.

For web site development, sure, scrum processes are ideal from beginning to end. For large programme of product development work or complex physical infrastructure work, a combination of waterfall for overall planning and scrum practices at component level can work very well.

Agile isn't new. It has been around for over 20 years. Many people and organisations have been using using some of the practices for years without consciously calling it Agile.

At the end of the day, success or failure of an organisation largely depend on people taking accountability and responsibility, having dedication and being customer focus.

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