-1

My company recently hired a new Project Manager and he has been pushing the scrum ideology. While this is great, another junior and I have not been assigned any other tickets for the past week. During our sprint planning, I had 2.5 days of work assigned in a 3-week sprint.

All tickets in the backlog are either back-end tasks or tasks blocked by back-end-related tasks. We have contacted the project manager & team lead regarding our lack of work during our daily standups and the situation is not yet changed. So what should we do?

Last few weeks, we have done:

  • We followed extern courses. Other courses are just a repetition of what we already saw. The other courses we have found are beginner/surface level. If you have any suggestions in more advanced courses, let me know :)
  • We have read some books regarding UX/UI.
  • We have started working on designs for future features where we don't have a technical document yet.

The previous Project Manager assigned us all known low-priority front-end tickets to get us more experience. So our front-end backlog looks very clean at this moment.

Right now, it really does look like we are out of work. We, however in the near future (possibly in a month or even multiple), have some bigger features & a big project planned. So what should we do?

Wojtek322
  • 521
  • 1
  • 4
  • 12
  • 2
    I'd recommend on brushing up on the backend work that you're currently unqualified to do – TheEvilMetal Nov 07 '22 at 09:36
  • 2
    Not a solution to your problem, just a note: what you right now do is not Scrum. There are no project managers in Scrum and you don't get tickets assigned in Scrum. It might be a transition to Scrum and I'm not going to judge whether it's going to work, but right now, it's not Scrum. By a long shot. – nvoigt Nov 07 '22 at 11:53
  • @JoeStrazzere He says that he & the team lead will look into assigning new tickets but he doesn't respond nor does it. Previously, he said that I had to watch an udemy course which has been completed. – Wojtek322 Nov 07 '22 at 12:30
  • 2
    Let me add some specific points regarding Scrum. First your organization is doing Scrum completely wrong. You should be able to pick up any piece of work, not be assigned work. The fact that all the remaining work is blocked means you have a big problem. Bring this up at the retrospective, and make sure a way is found to prevent this happening in the future. – DJClayworth Nov 07 '22 at 14:34

2 Answers2

1

You should ask your manager what they would like you to do when they have not assigned you anything.

You need to be very clear and highlight to them how much time you are not allocated work.

It would be good if you had suggestions ready to go for that discussion.

Anybody here that pretends to know what your boss wants is merely guessing.

Gregory Currie
  • 59,575
  • 27
  • 157
  • 224
1

From a technical POV, you can grow in 2 directions: become better at what you already do, or learn other new things. You are already good enough (for your level) at what you do, and there is a lot of work about something you do not know about.

So you have here the opportunity to learn something new - the backend stuff. You will not become an expert over night, but you show initiative and you can get involved deeper. It can only help you long-term.

Obviously, in the meanwhile, continue informing your manager and your project manager that you need more work - as you already do now. Maybe even ask them about trainings for back-end work, or any other work they plan to be done in the future.

virolino
  • 27,187
  • 8
  • 60
  • 103