agile estimating: moving away from hours

Copyright 2013 Davisbase LLC.

Presented by Russ Fletcher

in partnership with

Agile Estimating:Moving Away from Hours


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


Product DeliveryIllustrating the 5 Levels of Agile Planning

1

3

2

4

5

Vision PlanningYearly by the product owner

Roadmap PlanningSemi-yearly by the product owner

Release PlanningQuarterly by the product owner and team

Sprint PlanningBi-weekly by the team

Daily PlanningDaily by the team and individuals


Release 1 Release 2 Release 3 Release 4

InventoryDatabase

PaymentSystems

Security

FulfillmentSystems

Product Tracking Customer Loyalty

Advertising

Product RoadmapProduct Vision1

2

3

4

5

Agile Overview


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


Estimate Types

• Time-based vs Relative Estimating• Time-based Estimating focuses on elapsed

time• Relative Estimating focuses on size and

complexity


What People Hear

• What do Customers, Stakeholders, Marketing and others do with our estimates?

• Estimates drive expectations


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 ourESTIMATES


Relative Estimating

• Not time based(days, hours, weeks...)

• Size• Complexity

• Two techniques:• Triangulation• Bracketing


Story Points

• Unit-less measure of • Size• Complexity

• We know that 8 is four times the size of 2

8

2


• Mike Cohn’s Dog Point exercise

• Assign “dog points” to the following breeds based on size and complexity

Dog Breeds PointsDachshund

Labrador Retriever

Great Dane

Terrier

German Shepherd

Poodle

Bulldog

St. Bernard

Chihuahua

Relative EstimatingAssigning “dog points” to demonstrate relative sizes


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’.


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


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


Planning PokerUsing 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


Macro Estimating

• Relative estimating/Story Points works fine for small pieces of functionality, but...

• ...how do I do project-level estimation?


Product DeliveryIllustrating the 5 Levels of Agile Planning

1

3

2

4

5

Vision PlanningYearly by the product owner

Roadmap PlanningSemi-yearly by the product owner

Release PlanningQuarterly by the product owner and team

Sprint PlanningBi-weekly by the team

Daily PlanningDaily by the team and individuals


Release Planning

• Release Plan provides a connection from the Roadmap to our Sprints

• Provides visibility to how we deliver• Resources• Timing• Backlog Priority


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


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


Release Planning

• Take into consideration:• Stories• Priorities• Story Points• Velocity• Customer/Product Owner input


Release Planning

Sprint 1Story A - 3 ptsStory B - 2 ptsStory D - 5 pts

Sprint 2Story C - 5 ptsStory E - 2 ptsStory F - 3 pts

Sprint 3Story G - 8 ptsStory H - 3 pts

Release 1


Release Planning

Sprint 1Story A - 3 ptsStory B - 2 ptsStory D - 5 pts

Sprint 2Story C - 5 ptsStory E - 2 ptsStory F - 3 pts

Sprint 3Story G - 8 ptsStory H - 3 pts

Sprint 4Integration

Sprint

Release 1

Continuous Integration can save significant time


Release 1 Release 2 Release 3 Release 4

InventoryDatabase

PaymentSystems

Security

FulfillmentSystems

Product Tracking Customer Loyalty

Advertising

Product RoadmapProduct Vision1

2

3

4

5

Agile Overview


Thank You!

Russ FletcherVP Business Dev.Davisbase, [email protected](801) 636-4802

agile estimating: moving away from hours

Technology

davisbase llc

estimating story points

release planning release

relative estimating

release planningsprint

story estimate

story points unit

product deliveryillustrating