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Culture & Methods

Talking about Sizing and Forecasting in Scrum

Scrum Teams can use different approaches to size the effort to deliver a Sprint/Product Goal. The forecast will be wrong. We're moving one Sprint at a time, and refreshing forecasts frequently. Some would say, "Discover and deliver capabilities—review outcomes with the customers and end-users. Learn what can be learned. Act on what we have discovered. Don't manage expectations."

John Coleman
on Aug 04, 2022
Culture & Methods

Improving Your Estimation Skills by Playing a Planning Game

Underestimation is still the rule, rather than the exception. One bias especially relevant to the estimation process is the planning fallacy. This article explores the planning fallacy and how we are vulnerable to it. It explains how you can reduce your vulnerability to this fallacy through playing a planning game that has been specifically devised to help mitigate it.

Andrew Brown
on Apr 25, 2022
Culture & Methods

On Uncertainty, Prediction, and Planning

This article describes the software industry’s dismal history with predictions and planning in the face of uncertainty. It details some of the reasons why we fail to learn from our repeated mistakes. It suggests alternative approaches that are based on learning and include the strategy of hypothesis testing (Hypothesis-Driven Development) for deciding which features to deliver.

J Meadows
on Nov 29, 2019
Culture & Methods

Agile and Late! End-to-End Delivery Metrics to Improve Your Predictability

Agile teams may need to deliver milestones expected at a certain time, so will need to forecast or risk being accused of being “Agile and late”. There are metrics that relate to the “Logical Six” potential sources of delay which are key to improve forecasting accuracy. The metrics can used to create a Root Cause RAG Progress Report – to share a more accurate forecast and clear mitigations.

Charlie Ponsonby
on Nov 01, 2019
Culture & Methods

Author Q&A on the Book Software Estimation Without Guessing

George Dinwiddie has written a book titled Software Estimation without Guessing: Effective Planning in an Imperfect World. The book discusses different approaches to estimation for software products, the ways they can go wrong and be misused, and when to use them

Shane Hastie George Dinwiddie
on Oct 09, 2019
Culture & Methods

Agile in the Context of a Holistic Approach

In this article Jon Kern, co-author of the Agile Manifesto, describes a set of critical practices that serve to build up a holistic view of the project, from which all else proceeds. Fail to do a good job at taking the systems view, and your project will likely not go as well as it could. It might even fail.

Jon Kern
on Oct 01, 2018
Culture & Methods

Why Software Estimation Is More Important Now Than Ever

In a world trending away from traditional waterfall and toward agile development methodologies, it would be understandable to assume that there is no longer a need for software project estimation. However, that assumption would be wrong - estimation is still a very valuable practice, even in organizations that are dependent upon agile development methodologies.

Larry Putnam Jr
on Mar 08, 2018
Culture & Methods

Monte Carlo Planning Improves Decision Making

De la Maza helped a startup IPO by applying Monte Carlo to a planning problem. Learn how Monte Carlo planning provides a rigorous, quantitative account of what the future may bring. It has advantages over standard average case approaches and you can start with a simple Excel spreadsheet.

Michael de la Maza
on Mar 15, 2017
Culture & Methods

Size Estimation Approaches for Use with Agile Methods

Reifer’s software sizing survey identifies five commonly used methods for sizing agile projects along with their strengths and weaknesses. Size is used as the basis for measurement and estimation. Stories/story points is the most popular, while function points are used at the project level. Sizing by analogy, proxies, Halstead vocabulary and hybrids are used by others as the situation warrants.

Donald Reifer
on Feb 06, 2017
Culture & Methods

Q&A with Vasco Duarte on the #NoEstimates Book

In the book NoEstimates: How to Measure Project Progress Without Estimating Vasco Duarte explores how NoEstimates can help to manage projects with a focus on value and predictability, report progress quickly and often, and adapt plans constantly based on existing data.

Ben Linders
on Dec 07, 2015
Scrum Fundamentals and Advanced Live Lessons : Video Review and Interview

Tommy Norman’s Scrum Fundamentals and Advanced Live Lessons training videos help beginners to understand the basic agile and Scrum concepts. The videos run more than nine hours, broadly divided between “Scrum Fundamentals” and “Advanced Scrum”. The video sessions use animations to explain the concepts.

Savita Pahuja
on Apr 23, 2015
A Fast Story Point Estimation Process

Estimating story points can be a tedious process. So tedious in fact that some teams abandon doing story points to help predict their velocity. Instead of letting go of this valid way to predict upcoming work, how about finding a way to make the process of estimating points much faster? Not only faster, but FUN! Yes, story point estimation and fun in the same paragraph!

Mary Ann Michaels
on Apr 02, 2015