I like some of the concepts of agile and scrum. Two week sprints rather than multi-year projects. Faster turn around on bugs. Having a prioritized backlog so we know what we are doing next. Small standups to get ahead of blockers. Spending less time documenting everything and more time developing. You don’t need a PM or scrum master in those things. A good team lead can do it. If the PM needs an update, they can look at the board.
A lot of the crap that gets add in to it is so freaking useless. There is an AVP at my company that keeps pushing everyone to sign and share team agreements so “there can accountability.” It’s so cringy. If someone is getting stuff done, do you really think having them sign something saying they will do it is going to help? If someone is getting stuff done, then it isn’t going to change anything. It’s infantalizing. So much of it is micromanagement and lack of team trust.
I will admit that I have done that. I have created tasks, typically bugs, that have a title, maybe a screenshot, and a note that says contact me. It’s typically when I notice something wrong and can’t figure out an easy way to word it. Part of the problem is that I’m a visual person, so I like to show what I’m seeing. I don’t like doing it becuase I know people like to have details up front. It is something I’m working on. However, I would not hold my lack of communication against one of my devs.