Tag: agile estimates

19 February 2016 / Agile & Scrum

Splitting Backlog Items Part 3: How

In a sequence of blog posts based on our “Sharpen your story splitting skills” at XPDays 2015 to frame our useful deck of cards with splitting patterns, we bring you the last blogpost about how to split backlog items. Background Many times during our session we got questions like: "What’s the best pattern?" "Can you give us advice on how to split?" "When to apply which pattern?"...

2 September 2015 / Agile & Scrum

The evils of chasing Scrum Velocity…

Sometimes we want more. Sometimes Scrum's Velocity becomes the Holy Grail. And despite a lot of disproving advice, this focus element creeps in with an ease change makers can only be jealous of. Why is that? Ever noticed the affinity towards numbers when validating something? Our minds are pre-wired to linear thinking. There's a strong tendency to correlate cause and effect and the assumed predictability of that correlation. Strong tendency? ...

1 April 2013 / Agile & Scrum

Most common mistakes in scrum ceremonies 2/7: estimating stories

Spending too much effort in estimating stories People have the tendency to spend too much effort on estimating the incoming work. Having some basics skills available, like high/low showdown, deal and slide and planning poker will help the team to make well educated estimates they feel comfortable with. These techniques are also designed to maximize the return on investment of your time when it comes...

11 December 2012 / Agile & Scrum

Agile estimating 4/4: Kanban approach to estimating

Now I also promised you a second option of using a range of numbers instead of one number. This is something we use in a typical kanban implementation. I’ll explain how we would go about it. In kanban we would start by collecting historical data. Using this data we can discover several types of work that have significantly different cycle times, time to complete a...

7 December 2012 / Agile & Scrum

Agile estimating 3/4: Measurement of an estimate

Now why haven’t I talked about time in the previous chapter? Because using time for our estimates is very dangerous. When you ask someone how long something is going to take and they say 1 hour, your initial reaction is to expect it to be done the next hour. It’s not because we are egotistical or evil. Again, it’s just how the human brain works....

4 December 2012 / Agile & Scrum

Agile estimating 2/4: Absolute versus relative estimates

When you think about it, people always ask for absolute estimates. How long is it going to take to fix my car, when can I have it? And they are not happy when you say between 1-4 hours or 2-3 weeks. They need one absolute number, and some don’t even care if it’s right or wrong. They just need that number or date or timing....