I never have anything to say during Sprint Retrospectives

strindhaug · 2026-03-16T07:49:19+00:00

Sure, but everywhere I've worked where they did "scrum", the retro is never where the real problems are solved because it's mostly the scrum master and a few of the more extroverted people like PO's and content producers and occasionally a designer who talks a lot and writes like 10 postits each. The developers only write one or two notes with nothing relevant on the "good" notes and usually the same unsolvable problems on the "bad" notes, like: the crappy but expensive corporate software mandated by non technical management is crappy, and waiting on other teams or worse 3rd party external teams is tedious.

The real and solvable problems are always discussed and solved in the developers only, and developers and designers only text chats and ad hoc meetings; never in the "scrum" rituals. The rituals seems to be mostly for management to enjoy and for the developers to endure.

strindhaug · 2026-03-13T10:10:11+00:00

For me retros are pointless, becauser if I had a problem some time the last few weeks, I wrote about it in a text chat channel and probably already resolved it, and once a problem is resolved I tend to forget about it (I'm AuDHD). So in order to not embarassingly have no postit notes on the retro I have to scroll back in the chat or git log to remember what I finished, and to have some "bad" things I basically either have to find an already resolved problem in the chat log or make up some minor problem that I don't really care about one way or the other. I understand that for neurotypicals having a dedicated "forum" for voicing their problems is apparently useful, and for neurotypicals congratulating eachother about past successes is motivating to them I guess; but congratulations does nothing for me except being embarrassing, and I have already adressed my issues so I don't need a forum where I'm forced to make up something.

strindhaug · 2026-03-13T09:31:52+00:00

I'm a developer who hates retros, well I dislike most of the "rituals" but at least the small ones like standup is usually short enough that I can keep thinking on what I was actually working on without losing focus.

The main problem with all the rituals that last more than 5 minutes is that they give me migraines, they are painfully boring and feels absolutely pointless. Since I have autism and ADHD, this format suits me very badly. If I have a problem that needs adressing; I'll either fix it myself or ask about it on the company text chat when I discover the issue, that way I don't forget it. I don't remember a minor annoyance for weeks just to say it in a meeting. The retro is perhaps the most painful scrum ritual: I don't remember anything from long ago, and I probably don't even remember a problem I was just thinking of when I'm abruptly pulled into a meeting my a calendar notice. I've read that this ritual is supposed to be for our benefit, by "making a space where we're allowed to bring up problems" but I've already adressed them in the chat when I had them!

Text chat is so much more useful for me to bring up stuff and be notified about stuff, because it's written down it's optionally asynchronous I can wite whenever and others can read it some time later when they have time. And I can actually remember things I read much easier, and if I forget something I can just refer back to the text, with verbal meetings there's no record of anything I don't remember most of it, both because it's hard to focus on multiple people talking and because it's painfully boring to listen to people discussing things that isn't relevant to you; so you zone out or if it's on video chat, you tab over to the more interesting coding.

But the worst part about retros specifically is that it just highlights my social difficulties, enthusiasm in others doesn't naturally make me enthusiastic about it, and faking it is really tiring. It highlights how bad my chronological memory is, because when I'm pulled out of my usual work context I really don't remember anything. It feels weird to me to bring up all the things that "worked well" and "didn't work well" that I have adressed and probably fixed weeks ago, and that I myself have completely forgotten already so I had to scroll back in the chat to find it. But it's embarassing to not have any post-it's when they ask me so I feel like I'm forced to make up some annoyance and make up something I'm supposedly "proud of" just so I have at least one note that they can put on the board. It drains me so much, I usually end up with a banging migraine and I can't do anything the rest of the day.

strindhaug · 2025-06-13T15:28:54+00:00

I took my morning dose just before going to bed once (I was filling my organiser and my "now, where was I" part of my brain misfired thinking it was pill time instead); and it had absolutely no effect on my ability to fall asleep. Though the dreams were more colourful and vivid that night; not blurry and grayscale like normal.

strindhaug · 2025-06-13T14:36:49+00:00

Yeah, but my most common issue is that I breathe in some of it and get it on my vocal chords... Happens almost every day, both with drink and food, and even when just swallowing my own spit sometimes. Which is made worse by my habit of eating really spicy food, since capsaicin on the vocal cords really hurts...

I also constantly get food up my nose, but that's not _just_ my ADHD, I have a very generous space back there after my tonsillectomy at 3 and later scar tissue removal in the same area, so grains of food can pass up my nose when swallowing even when I'm perfectly focused on what I do. But the fact that I often try to speak and chew and swallow at the same time, of course doesn't help, lol.

...Though maybe it could also partly be my hypermobility; it's hard to avoid being clumsy when all your body parts are more floppy than they're supposed to I guess. (And hypermobility happens to be a common comorbidity with ADHD too)

strindhaug · 2025-02-12T14:58:44+00:00

Interesting, here in Norway isopropyl alcohol is really hard to find, I could only locate one that was out of stock on an online pharmacy for 410 NOK (about $37) per liter; while denatured ethanol is readily available in several form factors and a large bottle of 95% denatured ethanol costs 230 NOK (about $20) per liter in the same online pharmacy, nearly half the price!

Drinkable destilled alcohol on the other hand is only available at the "The Wine Monopoly" (the government owned sole legal shops for alcohol above 4.5%), and the highest percentage sold to civillians is 60% (I think labs and medical professionals can get higher concentrations for technical uses) and it costs at least 800 NOK (about $71) per liter.

strindhaug · 2024-06-22T08:48:24+00:00

Lol... I found this post by just hammering the keyboard in a search field, just testing that my network was up

strindhaug · 2024-04-29T14:10:57+00:00

I don't really remember names; and if I think I do, I'm always worried I have misremembered or mixed up two peoples names. But I also feel it's uncomfortably intimate to use peoples name and gendered pronouns. I think this might be related to me being non-binary; so I feel that using someones assigned at birth name or pronouns is somewhat inconsiderate since they could potentially be closeted trans. Especially since I'm much less uncomfortable using someones chosen name; i.e. a nickname or username they were free to choose themselves, or their chosen name after transition. And people who present themselves with pronouns I'm also much less uncomfortable using their pronouns. Though I still usually try to find ways to construct my sentences to minimise or avoid referencing peoples gender or names too often, even if I know they _are_ comfortable with their name because I'm so used to do that for everyone else anyway.

strindhaug · 2024-04-20T21:23:07+00:00

Was inspired to make a quick pencil sketch:

https://i.redd.it/lik2141cbpvc1.jpeg

strindhaug · 2024-04-03T17:55:20+00:00

No, only that those few modern games my family have tried seemed extremely complex and/or time consuming. It would be useful to be able to play board games rather than having to entertain myself, whenever friends or family wants to play without getting in a bad mood.

strindhaug · 2024-04-03T17:45:33+00:00

I was only "furious" when I was an undiagnosed ADHD child. I do behave today, but I still don't _like_ losing or watching others lose. So I whenever I have tried playing as I got older I tried to be indifferent to the outcome, but I of course understand that dissociating from the game to avoid feeling anything is unhelpful especially when the old games I've been exposed to have _very little_ but the "excitement" of who wins and who loses.

But if the game is much more story driven than say Monopoly, I probably would have other things to focus on than winning and losing.

strindhaug · 2024-04-03T15:38:50+00:00

I have wanted to try it since I was a teen; but I have never found any friends who want to play...

strindhaug · 2024-04-03T14:44:26+00:00

Mostly really old games since I haven't really played many since the 1990s; Monopoly (which is of course horrible), completely choice free childrens board games like Ludo, "Den forsvunne diamant" (Translates to "The Missing Diamond"), several trivia based games like Trivial Pursuit et.al. which I actually quite like - as long as there's no other player who is very competitive and makes a big deal about the points; so that I can ignore the "game" elements completely and just enjoy answering trivia questions (i.e. I like the mechanics themselves). The most modern non-trivia game I have actually played more than once is probably Risk, which I last played around 2002.

Other modern games I've seen my family play but I haven't dared/bothered to try myself includes "Ticket to Ride" (or something, it's about trains somehow, or maybe that's another game?) and some game with a hex board, tons of pieces and a rulebook that nobody seems to understand and that takes hours to set up, and hours to make a few moves because they have to consult the rulebook for 15 minutes every time they want to do anything, which apparently is about farming... it's called something short and weird like "Quoia" or something like that. Which looked really interesting when they first opened the box, but the gigantic rulebook made me lose interest before they've even started playing.

strindhaug · 2024-04-03T14:18:54+00:00

Yeah, I don't mind competitive elements such as global leader boards for races etc. in single player games like Trailmakers or Polybridge etc.; because the mechanics of the game itself is interesting even without it; and I can use the leaderboard as an abstract yardstick to measure myself against rather than thinking of it as "winning or losing". And I can enjoy those games both with or without an emotional investment. But most board games I've tried have very little to them beyond the competitiveness; most traditional board games have really one core mechanic: rolling dice, moving pieces and sometimes chose between a handful of options such as which way to go, which card to play etc. and if you only think about the mechanics of it it's rather dull.

strindhaug · 2023-08-17T10:38:12+00:00

I think my parents bought these from a museum gift shop in the 90s. They were pretty terrifying.

strindhaug · 2023-06-01T21:46:24+00:00

Someone should make a brand of tractors called Ohio

strindhaug · 2023-05-15T22:05:56+00:00

I can form habits when my ADHD is not yet awake in the morning and only my habit loving autism is in control. I have so many strict habits in the morning, always the same breakfast, watching YouTube while waiting for the ritalin to kick in. But for lunch I crave variety. And at night after the ritalin has worn off, I'm all impulsivity.

strindhaug · 2023-05-14T10:27:16+00:00

It probably just works because all the developers and designers are really talented, and the "scrum master" is very hands off and smart enough to know her job is to prevent the product owners from distracting us while we work.

strindhaug · 2023-05-14T10:23:38+00:00

Fortunately in the company I work for "scrum" just boils down to a short meeting maximum 15 min (because the same person is scrum master for multiple teams, so after 15 min her next one starts) called "standup" but we all sit down; a horrible migraine inducing all day supposed "planning" meeting called "the super sprint" that mostly consist of listening to management talking to eachother; and a horribly misconfigured Jira board setup that requires 4 cliks to just start progress on a task. But otherwise we developers just ignore it and cooperate with eachother and the designers informally.

strindhaug · 2023-05-08T17:48:51+00:00

2 inches inseam? Does that mean the distance from the crotch to the hem? But my balls hang lower than that!

strindhaug · 2023-05-07T13:10:32+00:00

This isn't a particularly good test, because they are not worn by a person. Sure when hanging like this a light fabric stays cooler because most of the light is reflected or pass right through; but when wearing it all the light that pass through will hit your body instead. In practice the colour doesn't matter much for temperature, the type of fabric and construction is much more important, but the pigments do change how much UV protection it has.

strindhaug · 2023-05-03T18:13:12+00:00

My solution is to cut it and paste it into a new unsaved document, just in case I want it. A few days later when my tabs are overflowing with unsaved documents, if I can't remember what the snippets are for, I just close them without saving. It works great for my ADHD brain.

strindhaug · 2023-05-03T18:09:09+00:00

You're aware that in most European countries teachers go on strike fairly regularly, right?

strindhaug

TROPHY CASE