I read a lot about "anti-pattern" in teams and organizations. What is that supposed to be?
I can observe patterns in teams and orgs. Some are helpful, some are not so helpful in that given context. The same pattern, that fails in one context, works well in another. All patterns served a purpose at a time, which might not be given anymore and makes them obsolete.
Talking about "anti-pattern" is normative BS and belongs to cults, not to social science. #justsaying
Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters and the likes who see "anti-patterns" will very likely fail to read an organization and make the right hypothesis.
Sorry, I disagree.
It is very useful to see anti patterns. They could be good points to change or could be the reason why something fails.
Anti-patterns are often ritual things that are out of date and could be correct or useful in the past. That is typically in organizations. A lot of habbits are based on the past
@scrumschau
Let's translate "anti-pattern" as unwanted or outdated behavior. We def see things which will likely lead to failure in e.g. software development teams.
But: If you fail to understand why such a pattern is (still) there, which problems it should solve, you deprive yourself of valuable data when analysing the org. Basically feeding our own bias, because it didn't work somewhere else.
@scrumschau But fair enough, coming from systemstheory and network theory I might have a different understanding of organizations.
Still, rating behavior in "good" and "unwanted according to scrum guide etc" is in no world scientific.
@scrumschau Let's take e.g. "Product Owner writes all tickes by herself without talking upfront to anybody". We all know that this sooner or later will cause huge problems.
Nevertheless, this practice is highly interesting when looking how the team or the org works. There are hundreds of thinkable reasons why it's they way it is, so be open and ask questions instead of condeming and calling hell fire.
@mflx
Is calling it "anti pattern" = condeming and hell fire?
I hope not.
For me it is the warning light: take a look here.
@mflx yes! That‘s exaxtly how I think about it. Antipattern means too much „by the book“ and it is the opposite of: „start from where they are“
@mflx I think you’re overstating it.
You say some patterns are “not so helpful”. The term “anti-pattern” simply refers to a pattern that is likely to be unhelpful.
@benjamineskola Absolutely.
My point is: don't judge a pattern or team behavior before you analyzed it. It may have valuable data in understanding how things work.