Agile Estimating: Moving Away from Hours
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The document outlines the principles and processes of Agile methodology, emphasizing the importance of delivering business value rapidly through team self-organization and iterative planning. It discusses various estimating techniques, including relative estimating and story points, and highlights the importance of team velocity in release planning. Additionally, it provides insights into the five levels of Agile planning and the significance of release and sprint planning for project execution.
Agile Estimating: Moving Away from Hours
- 1. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Presented by Russ Fletcher in partnership with Agile Estimating: Moving Away from Hours
- 2. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Agile Described... ‣ Agile is a philosophy and a process that drive us to focus on delivering the highest business value in the shortest time. ‣ The business sets the priorities. Teams self-organize to determine the best way to deliver the highest priority features. ‣ Every two weeks to a month anyone can see real working software and decide to release it as is or continue to enhance it. ...in less than 100 Words Courtesy Mike Cohn
- 3. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Product Delivery Illustrating the 5 Levels of Agile Planning 1 3 2 4 5 Vision Planning Yearly by the product owner Roadmap Planning Semi-yearly by the product owner Release Planning Quarterly by the product owner and team Sprint Planning Bi-weekly by the team Daily Planning Daily by the team and individuals
- 4. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Release 1 Release 2 Release 3 Release 4 Inventory Database Payment Systems Security Fulfillment Systems Product Tracking Customer Loyalty Advertising Product Roadmap Product Vision1 2 3 4 5 Agile Overview
- 5. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Estimating Ideal Time • Basketball game • How much longer will the game take? • Actual game time remaining is 12:48 • Ideal time is like basketball game time
- 6. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Estimate Types • Time-based vs Relative Estimating • Time-based Estimating focuses on elapsed time • Relative Estimating focuses on size and complexity
- 7. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. What People Hear • What do Customers, Stakeholders, Marketing and others do with our estimates? • Estimates drive expectations
- 8. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Games We Play • If we know that estimates drive expectations, what do we do with our estimates? • This leads to “estimate bloat” in highly dependent, traditional project plans Or we INFLATE them! We pad our ESTIMATES
- 9. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Relative Estimating • Not time based (days, hours, weeks...) • Size • Complexity • Two techniques: • Triangulation • Bracketing
- 10. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Story Points • Unit-less measure of • Size • Complexity • We know that 8 is four times the size of 2 8 2
- 11. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. • Mike Cohn’s Dog Point exercise • Assign “dog points” to the following breeds based on size and complexity Dog Breeds Points Dachshund Labrador Retriever Great Dane Terrier German Shepherd Poodle Bulldog St. Bernard Chihuahua Relative Estimating Assigning “dog points” to demonstrate relative sizes
- 12. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. The Scale • Not an infinite scale • Specific Sequence - 0, 1/2, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100, ? • Try to keep it small - stories estimated too large are candidates for being split • Stay with this sequence! Relative estimating sequence is based on the Fibonacci series. Leonardo of Pisa, aka Fibonacci, studied patterns in nature and found this sequence utilized again and again. The sequence was foundational for the discovery of the ‘golden ratio’.
- 13. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Estimating Story Points • Use comparisons - stories of similar size • Group stories of similar size to notice consistency • Triangulate - don’t compare to only one story
- 14. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Estimating Story Points • Don’t spend too much time on each story • Estimate as much as is needed for planning....nothing more • Epics (large stories) should be set aside to be broken down
- 15. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Planning Poker Using PlanningPoker.com • Steps for playing planning poker • Each estimator has a set of cards on their screen • Customer/Product Owner describes a story and allows for brief discussion • Each player selects a card on their screen for their estimate • Once everyone has estimated, then all cards are shown at the same time • Discuss differences • Re-estimate or discuss to reach convergence
- 16. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Macro Estimating • Relative estimating/Story Points works fine for small pieces of functionality, but... • ...how do I do project-level estimation?
- 17. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Product Delivery Illustrating the 5 Levels of Agile Planning 1 3 2 4 5 Vision Planning Yearly by the product owner Roadmap Planning Semi-yearly by the product owner Release Planning Quarterly by the product owner and team Sprint Planning Bi-weekly by the team Daily Planning Daily by the team and individuals
- 18. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Release Planning • Release Plan provides a connection from the Roadmap to our Sprints • Provides visibility to how we deliver • Resources • Timing • Backlog Priority
- 19. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Team Velocity • How much can the team FINISH in a single sprint • Factors effecting team velocity • Number of resources • Interruptions • Multi-tasking • Over time, team velocity is derived from actual data
- 20. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Velocity • Understanding the team’s capacity (velocity) will enable release planning • Over time utilize multiple data points to derive velocity: • Fastest pace • Average pace • Slowest pace Slowest Average Fastest Using velocity to plan the release
- 21. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Release Planning • Take into consideration: • Stories • Priorities • Story Points • Velocity • Customer/Product Owner input
- 22. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Release Planning Sprint 1 Story A - 3 pts Story B - 2 pts Story D - 5 pts Sprint 2 Story C - 5 pts Story E - 2 pts Story F - 3 pts Sprint 3 Story G - 8 pts Story H - 3 pts Release 1
- 23. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Release Planning Sprint 1 Story A - 3 pts Story B - 2 pts Story D - 5 pts Sprint 2 Story C - 5 pts Story E - 2 pts Story F - 3 pts Sprint 3 Story G - 8 pts Story H - 3 pts Sprint 4 Integration Sprint Release 1 Continuous Integration can save significant time
- 24. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Release 1 Release 2 Release 3 Release 4 Inventory Database Payment Systems Security Fulfillment Systems Product Tracking Customer Loyalty Advertising Product Roadmap Product Vision1 2 3 4 5 Agile Overview
- 25. Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC. Thank You! Russ Fletcher VP Business Dev. Davisbase, LLC russ.fletcher@davisbase.com (801) 636-4802