What exactly is Yak Shaving?

Question

This came up when a developer brought in these planning poker cards, one of which is Yak Shaving.

There are various articles on google/wikitionary which basically say:

Yak shaving is programming lingo for the seemingly endless series of small tasks that have to be completed before the next step in a project can move forward.

I can't tell if this is used in a positive or negative way though, or if you were using planning poker cards, what this would mean.

It could mean that people believe a particular task to be Yak Shaving, in which case they think it's an endless series of tasks and thus ultimately pointless (since endless means they'll never finish). This definition gives it a negative connotation.

The definition given by the people that make those cards is that a risky task could cascade into lots of small and less important subtasks, and may need to be better defined which doesn't make much sense, as I would expect that to be taken into account when assigning points, and if it's too many points then it's time to break it down.

Or it could mean that it's a necessary step, but rather than assign it points it should just be a task that runs in the background, whenever there is downtime. For example, we need to tidy up and redecorate the new office we moved into, or we need to spend some time reading all the employee handbooks and filling in a bunch of forms. These tasks are necessary in the long run but can be performed concurrently. This is a positive but not urgent connotation because the project can move forward without it.

It could also mean the same as above, but it's a task that is required for the project to move forward. I am not sure why you wouldn't give it a point value, but perhaps it is for example harassing a supplier that is late on delivering a spec that will be needed in a few weeks - the project cannot move forward without it but it's something that takes time here and there to fire off an e-mail, make a phone call etc. This is a positive connotation of the term as well.

I'll restate the questions since it's been flagged for closing as too broad:

• I have heard this phrase at almost every job I have worked at. How it is this term used in general conversation?
• Is it positive or negative when used to describe a task?
• What is an example of Yak Shaving?

Answer 1

Yak shaving describes doing some seemingly useless task that is necessary to complete another task, which is necessary to complete other tasks, which eventually will allow you to complete your initial goal.

I think the term can either be positive or negative:

• It is positive (or neutral) when it describes a series of small tasks necessary in order to accomplish a larger goal. For example, "I spent most of the day yak shaving, but I finally finished my project".

• It is negative when used to describe how you let distractions get in the way of accomplishing a goal. For example, "I intended to finish that project today, but ended up spending the day yak shaving".

Here is an example, paraphrased from Don’t Shave That Yak!:

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You start with the desire to wax your car.

To wax your car, you need a water hose. Only, your water hose is busted so you need to go down to the hardware store to get a new hose.

To get to the hardware store, you have to drive across a bridge. The bridge requires a pass or ticket. You can't find your pass, but you know your neighbor has one.

However, your neighbor won't lend you his pass until you return a pillow that you borrowed. The reason you haven't returned it is because the pillow is missing some stuffing.

The pillow was originally stuffed with yak hair. In order to re-stuff the pillow you need to get some new yak hair.

And that's how you end up shaving a yak, when all you really wanted to do was wax your car.

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Answer 2

I remember when Scrum first came out everyone would wheel out the chicken and pigs nomenclature (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicken_and_the_Pig)

No one understood what the hell it was supposed to mean and why it applied to dev team (pigs) vs Business (chickens)

Then we had "Backlog Grooming" A US term which did not go down well in the UK.

"Bikeshedding" is another phrase that makes no sense unless someone has explained it.

We have to remember that there is a meta industry around IT and development which is focused on selling management techniques and architectural ideas.

This industry is constantly spawning new terms and funny anecdotes which it uses to try and explain why their particular idea is super cool.

But the meaning of the phrase can be lost when it moves outside of that original 'bought in' audience.

I doubt if "Yak Shaving" means the same thing over more than two teams, let alone two companies or two countries. Define what you mean by the card within the team and write it on the back.

Answer 3

My understanding of the term , specifically as it relates to the card in planning poker, is that it's a warning that we're concentrating a lot of effort on a task that we don't really want to do, but we need to do it in order to do the task we really want to do.

It's an invitation to consider if there is a better way to get your original intended task done rather than spend a lot of effort "shaving the yak".

Answer 4

I think this answers all your questions from the originator himself:

1. I'm yak shaving. / To fix that bug, I had to yak shave all night.
2. Positive in a negative away; positive because you gotta do it, but negative because it's tedious, then ultimately positive because you've reached home.
3. Carl mentioned his original problem where he first used the term as an example below.

"More on the origin of the term “yak shaving” In a follow-up email exchange on the origin of the term, Carl Vieri shared this:

For me, “yak shaving” should be things that are related to your primary objective, not just distractions. … [for example,] where tools are out of date, or there are other minor hurdles that take you on a path away from your primary task, but that can be traced back to that task.

As for “Ren & Stimpy,” I used to play hockey late on Tuesday nights. I would have dinner at midnight Tuesdays and watch TV, and I saw the “Yak Shaving Day” episode. I thought it was so odd, that later when I was struggling to overnight a document (getting permission from an admin, setting up a DHL account, getting a PO, all that nonsense), I told my officemate I was yak shaving. Over the next few weeks/months, I tried to get folks around the lab to use the term, and Jeremy Brown really liked it. He used it in his GSB post a couple of years after I left the lab."

credit: https://americanexpress.io/yak-shaving/

FYI, the author of the blog views it more as a "chasing the rabbit" type of term.