Help. We're starting to feel the effects of unnecessary micromanagement.

We're a small startup. The kind with less than 10 devs spread across different domains. We've been fine with a Kanban approach as the velocity/flow of deliverables don't necessarily warrant a Scrum approach yet.

Our boss has been wanting to adopt Scrum-style sprints, even shoved and assumed that were doing these sprints and demanding Scrum-style reports (and meetings!!!) when they are, in reality,
1) unnecessary
2) a waste of time

Absolutely none of the team members want this. But our boss insists on having it. We like our boss, but lately things are getting out of control

What can we do to mitigate and prevent this?

This is great news, give it to him.

Setup your board, set your points up and get your velocity going.

Make sure you follow the rules too.

- 2 week sprints
- 80% capacity
- nothing gets put on the active sprint unless the team accepts it
- points account for 8 hour days
- management only gets a say in what goals are to be completed, not how, not when

Funny thing about scrum, it's like an infinity gauntlet. Whomever controls the sprint, controls the game.

If your team controls the sprint, there's no way management can fuck you over. Just make sure it's very clear what the KPI is.

Most managers just want points completed. Easy enough.

BTW, points completed is terrible KPI because it's so easy to fuck with.

"Yeah, that story? Oh man it's going to be at least 6 points, so let's split it into six 1 point stories."...3 days later..."wow we hit our stride and really got through all that work, great hustle team!"

scrum is considered too much micromanagement? lol

we had problems with communication in a team with 4 devs, i think 10 is more than enough to warrant a bit of structure. meetings and documentation are not a waste of time, they actually save a lot of do overs, explanations and conflicts, and the company will suffer if you guys don't introduce it early

10 devs is still considered "small" these days? Thats an entire dev department at some
companies!