This document discusses the NoEstimates approach to software development. It begins by defining estimates and explaining that NoEstimates is about minimizing estimates rather than eliminating them entirely. The main goals of NoEstimates are to evaluate progress in a concrete way and force teams to slice work into smaller stories. Key benefits include being faster, easier iteration planning, and minimal time spent estimating. Progress is measured by the number of "Running Tested Stories" completed. The document also covers challenges, case studies, and debates around using NoEstimates versus more traditional estimating approaches.
Everyone Stealing your help? Build a Culture for retention!Lee A. Clark
The document discusses improving processes and building trust between management and employees. It suggests:
1. Simplifying processes, cost codes, and measurements to increase accuracy and consistency in tracking productivity and results.
2. Using technology to centralize data, eliminate redundancy, and provide real-time feedback to employees on their performance and skills development.
3. Communicating daily with employees to get their input on productivity and skills, and convey accountability for improvement rather than punishment. This would help build management-employee trust over time.
resentation design is a tricky creative process- You might even call it an art. If you get it right and create a great presentation, you're far more likely to achieve your goals – whether that's selling more or helping people see your point of view. Hence, storyboarding your PowerPoint presentation is a surefire way to make sure that it covers the key points and hits the mark.
It started with comic books and the film industry, and now storyboarding has a place in every executives repertoire of skills. Take a look and give this a shot!
The document discusses different approaches to estimation in waterfall and Scrum methodologies. In Scrum, teams estimate their own work in story points, which are relative units based on size and complexity. Story points help drive cross-functional behavior and do not decay over time. Ideal days estimates involve determining how long a task would take with ideal conditions and no interruptions. Planning poker uses story point cards to facilitate discussion and reach consensus on estimates. Release planning in Scrum involves estimating velocity over sprints to determine how many product backlog items can be completed.
The document provides guidance on best practices for estimating user stories in agile software development. It describes story estimation as assigning story points to stories based on their complexity relative to a baseline story. The core development team participates in estimation through planning poker sessions facilitated by the Scrum Master. Estimation occurs during regular backlog grooming and sprint planning meetings to size all stories in the backlog and those being considered for the next sprint.
User story points are used for estimation because software projects are complex with many factors that make hour-based estimation inaccurate. Story points use a relative scale where user stories are assigned points based on their size compared to baseline reference stories. This allows for more accurate planning across sprints and continuous improvement of estimates as a team's velocity is tracked over time. The key aspects are regularly practicing estimation as a skill, having a shared understanding of baseline stories, and focusing comparisons only on effort required to complete stories.
This document provides an overview of agile stories, estimating, and planning. It discusses what user stories are, how to write them, and techniques for estimating story sizes such as story points. It also covers different levels of planning including release planning, iteration planning, and daily planning. The document is intended to provide background information on using agile methods for requirements management and project planning.
This document discusses techniques for software project estimation. It recommends providing estimates as ranges rather than specific numbers, and always clarifying what an estimate will be used for. It emphasizes aggregating independent estimates, using past project data to calibrate estimates, and not negotiating estimates or commitments. Key techniques include decomposing work into independently estimable units, using the "law of large numbers" for accuracy, and re-estimating regularly based on actual project velocity. Overall, the document provides guidance for creating estimates that are useful without being overly precise commitments.
This document discusses software development methodologies and estimating work. It provides biographical information about the author, including their experience in agile coaching and teaching. It then explores debates around estimating work, noting that estimates are not deadlines and focusing on understanding systems and accepting variability. Various estimation techniques are presented like planning poker, story points and lead time. A real case study example is shared how moving away from estimates to continuous delivery improved outcomes. The document emphasizes that #NoEstimates can work if work is done incrementally and rapidly to deliver value.
Estimating the size and effort required for projects and tasks is important for planning purposes but difficult to do with precision. Estimates are informed guesses that can vary due to factors like unclear requirements, lack of historical data, and scope changes. While estimates are not perfect, they provide value by enabling prioritization, collaboration, and iterative planning. Effective estimation techniques include using ranges rather than single points, factoring in assumptions, combining expert judgement with data-driven methods, and refining estimates over time as understanding improves.
Ever wonder why Agile teams swear by relative estimation? My teams improved sprint planning efforts by a factor or 3, once we started using relative estimation.
Without understanding Agile relative estimation, teams tend to fall back to using time-based methods. This often leads them to spend way too much time on obsolete estimates that will be made even more complex with all the unknowns and constant emergent requirements of an Agile world!
“It's better to be roughly right, than precisely wrong!”
~ John Maynard Keyenes
The Solution is simple: understand that relative estimation is only a rough order of magnitude estimate to quickly organize the product backlog. This empowers your product owners (PO) to quickly make value based trade-offs on backlog items and decide on what stories the team should work next. This gives the business the highest bang for their buck!
PROBLEMS WITH TIME-BASED ESTIMATES
-Teams spend too much time trying to get it right
-Lack of confidence/experience can lead to people being either optimistic or pessimistic
-Timeline you are estimating may be too far in the future
-Due to long timeline, there are too many risks, unknowns, changes or dependencies!
WHY USE RELATIVE ESTIMATION?
-Allows a quick comparison of stories in the backlog
-Allows you to select a predictable volume of work to do in a sprint
-Uses a simple arbitrary scale
-Allows PO to make trade-offs and take on the most valuable stories next
ESTIMATION TIPS
-Relative points or equivalent Tshirt sizes are used to estimate stories, leveraging the Fibonacci sequence modified for Agile.
-The team estimates the story, not management nor the customer.
-Story estimates account for three things: effort, complexity, and unknowns. Don’t short sell yourself by estimating effort alone, that’s where waterfall projects face issues.
-Remember to estimate all Stories, user stories or technical stories. Even estimate research or discovery spikes.
-Refine your backlog as a team on a continuous basis, to get your stories to meet the Definition of Ready.
-Only pull into your sprint, stories that are refined and estimated.
-Break down stories that are large, into smaller slivers of value to optimize your flow.
-Don’t sweat it if you get it wrong, teams often do early on but improve over time.
This is a presentation I made in the beginning of this year to explain the basics of agile Estimates. Although the presentation doesn't cover exceptions and some special cases (like in the case of hours estimates) it's a good starting point. A text to understand better the presentation will come on my channel on Medium soon.
This document discusses key concepts in agile planning including story points, velocity, and release planning using velocity. It defines story points as relative sizes used to estimate user stories, and explains how they remain constant over time unlike ideal days estimates. Velocity is defined as the average story points a team can complete per sprint. The document outlines how to establish story points and use them along with velocity for release planning and tracking progress with a burn down chart.
This is a concept I devised a couple of years ago, and it seems there is a new #NoEstimates audience that would like to know more about it.
A Slicing Heuristic is essentially:
An explicit policy that describes how to "slice" work Just-In-Time to help us create consistency, a shared language for work and better predictability.
The Slicing Heuristic seeks to replace deterministic estimation rituals by incorporating empirical measurement of actual cycle times for the various types of work in your software delivery lifecycle.
It is based on the hypothesis that empiricism leads to smaller cycle time duration and variation (which in business value terms means quicker time to market and better predictability) because it requires work to be sliced into clear, simple, unambiguous goals. Crucially, the heuristic also describes success criteria to ensure it is achieving the level of predictability we require.
Its application is most effective when used for all levels of work, but can certainly be used for individual work types. For example, a User Story heuristic can be an extremely effective way of creating smaller, simpler work increments, allowing teams to provide empirical forecasts without the need for estimating how long individual stories will take. However, if you are able to incorporate this concept from the portfolio level down, the idea is that you define each work type (e.g. Program, Project, Feature, User Story, etc.) along with a Slicing Heuristic, which forms part of that work type’s Definition of Ready.
This document discusses different methods for conducting retrospectives in Agile software development. It outlines several common retrospective structures including using three questions to gather data on what went well, what didn't go well, and what puzzles the team; using a starfish model to gather data on what to keep doing, start doing, stop doing, and less of; and using a timeline to map out significant, problematic, and good events over the project. The document also discusses setting the stage, gathering data, generating insights, deciding on actions, and closing out the retrospective. The goal of retrospectives is for teams to reflect on how to continuously improve.
Agile Patterns: Agile Estimation
We’re agile, so we don’t have to estimate and have no deadlines, right? Wrong! This session will consist of review of the problem with estimation in projects today and then an overview of the concept of agile estimation and the notion of re-estimation. We’ll learn about user stories, story points, team velocity, how to apply them all to estimation and iterative re-estimation. We will take a look at the cone of uncertainty and how to use it to your advantage. We’ll then take a look at the tools we will use for Agile Estimation, including planning poker, Visual Studio Team System, and much more. This is a very interactive session, so bring a lot of questions!
Scrum uses relative estimation and velocity to aid in planning and making trade-off decisions. Relative estimation involves comparing the effort of new requirements to previously estimated ones, which humans are better at than absolute estimates. Velocity is the amount of work completed in an iteration, measured in story points or hours, and varies over time so is useful for longer-term planning. There are two types of Scrum planning: fixed-date planning estimates how much can be completed by a date based on velocity, while fixed-scope planning estimates the timeframe to complete all backlog items based on velocity. Both use velocity as a range rather than a precise prediction.
This presentation includes an overview of the various estimation techniques used in Agile projects. I've also put in a slide for explaining the importance of business value for Agile requirements. A simple mechanism on capacity planning before weaving it all together to come up with a reasonably foolproof plan.
The document provides tips and techniques for software estimation. It discusses defining estimates, factors that influence accuracy such as probability statements and the cone of uncertainty. The primary purpose of estimation is to determine if targets are realistic rather than perfectly predicting outcomes. Techniques covered include counting elements to estimate, using historical data for calibration, individual expert judgement breaking tasks into appropriate levels of detail, analogy to past projects, and group expert judgement. Accuracy improves with proper technique selection, assumptions documentation, and incorporating lessons learned.
This document summarizes an agile leadership assessment of an individual. The assessment scored the individual a 0 out of 100 in several key areas of agile leadership, including setting clear expectations, goal setting, coaching employees, involvement in development, and attitude. All scores were 0%, indicating the individual needs to improve in all areas assessed by developing agile leadership skills. No strengths were identified. The assessment suggests the individual needs to work on and improve all leadership skills measured.
Este documento presenta las capacidades y alcance de Publimetro, un medio de comunicación gratuito presente en 23 países. Publimetro tiene una red de más de 500 periodistas que escriben en 13 idiomas y alcanzan a 8.5 millones de lectores diarios en 124 ciudades. El documento destaca que Publimetro ofrece soluciones de marketing a través de su periódico gratuito, portafolio digital, acciones de marketing experiencial, publicaciones personalizadas e impresión comercial.
This document contains summaries of two articles about virtual classrooms for education:
1) The first article discusses how virtual classrooms can be used in online learning environments to provide synchronous content like simultaneous events, online conversations and presentations. It notes various tools available for communication, sharing, and evaluation in virtual classrooms.
2) The second article outlines general requirements for effective virtual classroom tools, including integration with learning management systems, streaming and recording capabilities, breakout rooms, desktop sharing, file sharing, whiteboards, and instant messaging. It states that flexibility is often touted as the main advantage but tools must also substitute for a standard classroom.
Holistic Education, Economy And Health Dr. Shriniwas Kashalikarsangh1212
The document discusses Dr. Shrinivas Kashalikar's view that implementing a holistic and productive education system can improve economies, health, and reduce stress. It argues that mainstream education neglects spiritual and productive domains. Introducing a productive domain component, like crafts and skills, into 25% of school time could make education accessible to all by making schools self-sufficient. This would reduce stress, dropout rates, unemployment and associated social problems.
Presentation introduces technology that helps people to implement healthy life habits.
Directed at Investors and strategic partners, this presentation details the vision for a new methodology for helping people to gradually implement healthy life habits.
Román Gil. El futuro de las relaciones laborales. 50º Congreso Internacional ...AEDIPE
Este documento discute los efectos disruptivos de la tecnología en el trabajo, incluyendo el desarrollo de la economía "on-demand" y las plataformas digitales, y el impacto de la robotización y la inteligencia artificial. También explora la necesidad de nuevos marcos regulatorios para abordar los desafíos planteados por estas nuevas formas de trabajo y la profecía de Keynes de que la automatización podría eliminar los puestos de trabajo humanos, requiriendo un replanteamiento de cómo funciona la sociedad.
Forgiveness is a complex issue explored in this document. It discusses whether it is possible to forgive and forget past wrongs, such as those committed during World War I and World War II where millions of soldiers and civilians lost their lives. The document also acknowledges that while we remember the losses of war, we must also remember that soldiers from opposing sides like Germany also fought and died, and that forgiveness and apologies have become increasingly important words in the decades since those conflicts ended.
The document discusses a values assembly where caring is the highlighted value for the month. A professor used an example of filling a jar with rocks to imagine how adding small acts of caring can accumulate over time like rocks in a jar. The assembly also mentioned a reverse advent calendar as part of promoting caring values.
Karmele Acedo. Trabajo y empleo en sectores sociales. 50º Congreso Internacio...AEDIPE
50º Congreso Internacional AEDIPE. El futuro del trabajo.
Pamplona, 6 y 7 de octubre de 2016.
Experiencias y retos en la gestión de organizaciones y personas.
Mesa 5. Trabajo y empleo en sectores sociales.
Karmele Acedo, CEO de Grupo Servicios Sociales Integrados
Agile Center of Excellence : Presented by Rahul Sudame oGuild .
When any organization plans to move to Agile methodology, it needs to plan multiple initiatives for successful transition. One of the important initiative would be building an Agile Center of Excellence, a team which would support for consistency of Agile implementation across the organization. The Agile CoE we built worked on multiple aspects such as:
Defining organization-wide Agile methodology, tailoring it as per organization environment if required.
Build knowledge of Agile across the organization.
Supporting the team members with any ongoing queries.
Support in building required Tools and Templates required implementing Agile.
Assessing Agile implementation of different projects, identifying any gaps or improvement areas.
This session covered practical experience of how we built a successful Center of Excellence, which become a big enabler for successful Agile transformation.
Brought to you by the organizer of MIPTV & MIPCOM, the leading international entertainment markets, Esports BAR is the world’s first international B2B matchmaking & networking event, uniquely designed to accelerate the potential of the growing esports market. Over 3 days, Esports BAR will connect Brands & Media decision makers with Esports’ rights holder to make sponsoring, broadcasting and licensing deals.
Esports BAR is the most direct, cost effective & easy way to forge successful business partnerships .
We offer you to select who you want to meet among up to 40 Esports Organisations (teams, publishers, leagues)
Then an online matchmaking tool generates pre-scheduled meeting agenda based on preference priority, allowing you to hold 16 X 25 minutes 1-to-1 targeted meetings at Esports BAR.
To ensure the efficiency of the event, we –organizer- are actively, and carefully, curating the decision-makers that will take part in the event.
Modern CRM – So Much More Than A Sales ToolRedspire Ltd
Modern CRM systems allow sales and marketing teams to better integrate and share customer data insights. This enables improved segmentation, product development, and use of multiple marketing channels. Modern CRM uses big data analytics to gain deeper customer understanding from various sources like web, mobile, social media. Effective CRM requires organizations to prepare teams through communication, training, and developing a collaborative culture before implementing new technology. Benefits include centralized lead management, aligned sales and marketing metrics, automated processes, and a single customer view to improve performance.
The document discusses building self-esteem and positive thinking. It emphasizes avoiding negative self-talk and focusing on developing a positive thought pattern instead. It also stresses becoming aware of cognitive distortions that diminish the positive and recommends strategies like writing a positive self-commercial, focusing on positivity for 15 minutes daily, and using mantras to reduce stress. The overall message is that cultivating an optimistic mindset through recognizing one's strengths is important for achieving goals and overcoming challenges.
FILLING IN THE GAPS – DESIGN INSIGHTS (Workshop)sinnerschrader
The document discusses the process of collaboration between teams to fill in gaps in understanding and build products that meet user needs. It states that filling in gaps is a process of refinement achieved through open participation and shared understanding between parties. An effective process is outlined where one party describes an issue, the other fills in their perspective, feedback is provided until both parties feel the problem is understood and solutions can be determined. The goal is to minimize gaps in interpretation through collaboration.
This document provides an overview of the marketing mix strategies used by Forever 21. It discusses the company's products, which include clothing, accessories, and beauty items targeted towards teenagers and young adults. It analyzes Forever 21's promotion strategies on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and through influencer marketing. It also examines Forever 21's competitive pricing approach, with most items priced between $2-$100 to make fashion affordable and attract a wide customer base.
UPDATED PPT on Role social media in teaching and learning dr manishankar chak...Dr.Manishankar Chakraborty
UPDATED presentation on Social Media and its role in teaching and learning for the workshop conducted by Dr Manishankar Chakraborty for the teaching staff members of Ibra College of Technology, Sultanate of Oman on the 29th of April 2013.
Twitch es una plataforma para transmitir videos en vivo, principalmente de juegos de video. Los usuarios pueden transmitir desde dispositivos móviles o PC y otros usuarios pueden ver las transmisiones en vivo y dejar comentarios. Twitch se creó en 2011 para transmitir juegos en vivo y ahora es muy popular entre los gamers.
The document discusses several issues relating to appeals in special proceedings:
1) Only interested parties may appeal orders or judgments from special proceedings. Strangers without a material interest do not have a right to appeal.
2) In appeals from special proceedings, the period of appeal is 30 days and a record on appeal is required. The court loses jurisdiction only over matters included in a timely filed record on appeal.
3) The document then lists several types of orders that are considered appealable in special proceedings relating to estates, including orders allowing or disallowing wills or claims, settling accounts, and determining heirs.
4) It provides examples from Supreme Court jurisprudence of other appealable orders related to
This document discusses the #NoEstimates debate in software development. It describes how #NoEstimates started as a conversation on Twitter about delivering software without estimates. It presents various perspectives from practitioners who do this, including focusing on value delivery, working software, and emergent costs and value from user feedback. Key aspects of #NoEstimates discussed are using a "slicing heuristic" to break down work into small chunks and measuring cycle times, as well as choosing work on a portfolio level through frequent delivery of options using fixed teams. Common questions about #NoEstimates are addressed, such as what is and isn't estimating, the role of risk, and who should predict an uncertain future.
Delight Your Customers: The #noestimates Waytroytuttle
This document discusses moving away from estimation practices in software development and instead focusing on delivering value to customers frequently through iterative development. It notes challenges with estimation such as durations often exceeding estimates and the "estimation game" where developers are pressured to provide unrealistic estimates. Instead of estimates, it recommends tracking lead time and throughput to manage workload and using probabilistic forecasts to set expectations on completion times. The document advocates for prioritizing work, analyzing tasks at a high level, and delivering in small batches to get feedback and adapt quickly.
Scoping and Estimating WordPress Projects as an AgencyJohn Giaconia
WordCamp Los Angeles 2016. Scoping and Estimating WordPress Projects as an Agency. Presentation video available here: http://wordpress.tv/2016/09/25/john-j-giaconia-and-kara-hansen-scoping-and-estimating-wordpress-projects-as-an-agency/
Scoping and Estimating WordPress Projects as an AgencyKara Hansen
The document provides an overview of how to scope, estimate, and manage WordPress projects as an agency. It discusses the importance of understanding scope through discovery, estimating projects by breaking work into discrete tasks, and managing customer expectations through clear communication and documentation of assumptions. Continuous improvement is emphasized through retrospective reviews of past projects to refine processes.
The document discusses various techniques for estimating work in Agile projects, including story points and feature points. It explains that story points are used to estimate user stories and provide a relative measure of complexity, while feature points are used to estimate larger features. The document also describes planning poker, where teams discuss estimates and converge on a shared value through discussion. Finally, it notes that estimates may need adjusting over time based on team experience and environment factors.
The document discusses using feature points for agile release planning. It defines feature points and how they can be used to estimate user stories, features, and epics at different levels of a project. The key points are: feature points provide relative estimates independent of time units; epics are estimated by POs and architects, features by team leads, and stories by scrum teams; velocity is tracked in feature points to predict sprint and release completion; and principles for agile estimation emphasize basing estimates on facts, estimating often and small chunks, and communicating assumptions.
The document discusses lean analytics and lean principles for software development. It describes the main stages of product development - empathy, stickiness, virality, revenue, and scale. For each stage, it recommends key metrics to measure, such as daily/weekly active users for stickiness, viral coefficient for virality, and quarterly recurring revenue for revenue. It emphasizes focusing on one metric that matters the most for each stage, measuring assumptions in the right order, and using both qualitative and quantitative metrics for continuous learning and improvement.
Unlike traditional projects, Agile teams provide their estimates using a “top-down” approach; where they use current available information to produce gross-level estimation, and this estimation is less accurate and has less details.
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To Estimate or Not To Estimate + #(No)Estimates GameAgile Humans
The document discusses the debate around estimating in software development. It presents arguments for and against estimating, as well as different approaches to estimating such as using story points, t-shirt sizes, and the #NoEstimates method. The document also explores reasons for estimating like planning, forecasting, and facilitating meaningful discussions, as well as techniques for estimating like planning poker, decomposition into subtasks, and using the Fibonacci sequence. Overall, it examines the tradeoffs of different estimating approaches and emphasizes focusing on complexity and uncertainty over precise hours or dates.
Agile Network India | Effective User story writing and story mapping approachAgileNetwork
Session Title: Effective User story writing and story mapping approach
Abstract:Get a high-level view is story mapping, how to create features and epics, release planning and key concepts to understand how stories work and how they come to life in Agile a story’s lifecycle. Example of effective Agile scrum User story.
Key Takeaways:
1. Learn how to convert this to working software.
2. User story vs Use Case
3. Flat backlog vs story map
4. Technical vs functional stories
5. Creating stories collaboratively.
Measure what matters for your agile projectMunish Malik
While working with Agile projects, we simply can't get away from tracking and showcasing the progress of the project. A typical Agile project would be working with estimates, story points, velocities, burn-up or burn-down charts.
I have witnessed numerous sprint reviews and showcases where the business is only waiting to see those few slides of the presentation where there is the "actual" red worm, running against the "planned" green worm, trying to catch-up. If the red worm is ahead, I have seen a smile on the faces of the stakeholders. If it matches the green one, there is a sigh of relief. And as a development team you should just pray that the poor red guy is not falling behind the green one, lest it might lead to a lot of questions starting with why, how, what etc.
There have also been times where there have been some unfortunate heated discussions that last forever on why did the team end up not claiming a few points that they had committed. What gets lost is what the team accomplished in the sprint that adds good value to the product. There have also been times where the estimates are being questioned by the product owner or account managers. If you are working in a distributed setup where the product owner is working out of a different country, the problem is even bigger.
Let us think about a scenario where the project gets completed on time, budget and scope. Majority (or all) of estimates were correct. However, when the product went live to the market it failed big time. What is the use of building such a product?
Are we focusing too much on numbers and points and overlooking the other important aspects of Agile software development such as producing software that delights the customers and looking for ways on how we can measure that? Are we measuring if we are creating a solid, robust and a scalable platform that is ready for future developments and enhancements? Are we measuring the outcomes of the time we are spending in the shoes of the people who will actually use the software?
The objective of this presentation is to promote the thinking of measuring what matters for your project. To measure the goals that your software development wants to achieve. I don't plan to showcase an exhaustive list of measurements that can solve all your problems, however, I instead want to highlight some samples that I have used in my projects with the help of my team, that helped us to measure things that add value to the business and development v/S simply creating burn down charts.
Majorly, I want to encourage thinking out of the box to identify what measurements will really matter for your projects. Perhaps from the eyes of the users and business and see what things if measured will add a lot more value than simply estimates, and will help in creating a valuable product that will truly delight the business and the users of the product.
You’re an expert developer, peacefully composing code into a profoundly elegant masterpiece, when suddenly your boss rushes in with the Next Big Idea that will Revolutionize The Way People Use The Internet. He’s on his way to pitch to a VC, and stops by to describe the Idea in excited terms. After a 30 second elevator pitch, he pops the question: “So, Peter, how long do you think it will take to build this thing-a-ma-bob?”
What do you say?
These eight Protips will cover your back, save your job, and keep your boss’s shirt.
This document discusses the importance of estimating and tracking time for documentation projects. It recommends tracking all time spent on tasks like meetings, writing, editing, and more to build a basis for accurate estimating. Both bottom-up and top-down estimating methods are described. Tracking time allows learning from past projects to improve estimates using techniques like comparative, parametric, and matrix-based estimating. Correlating estimates with tracking provides feedback to refine estimates. Risks should be identified and stakeholders agree on estimates upfront to manage scope changes.
Agile Network India | Effective User story writing and story mapping approach...AgileNetwork
The document discusses key Agile concepts like user stories, epics, features, and release planning. It explains how to create a story map to visualize the customer journey rather than a flat backlog. A story map focuses on customer outcomes, brings the customer journey to life, and allows prioritizing work based on value to the customer. It also discusses the lifecycle of a user story, differences between features, epics, and stories, and converting a product backlog to a sprint backlog.
Agile Network India | Effective User story writing and story mapping approach...AgileNetwork
The document discusses key Agile concepts like user stories, epics, features, and release planning. It explains how to create a story map to visualize the customer journey rather than a flat backlog. A story map focuses on customer outcomes, brings the customer journey to life, and allows prioritizing work based on value to the customer. It also discusses the lifecycle of a user story, differences between features, epics, and stories, and converting a product backlog to a sprint backlog.
This document provides an overview of agile practices for product management. It begins with definitions of agile and its principles, which emphasize iterative development, collaboration between teams, and frequent delivery of working software. The document then outlines the typical agile procedure, including sprints, iterations, and product backlogs. It discusses various roles like product owners, coaches, and designers. It also covers practices for effective meetings, prioritizing work, designing user stories, testing, and ensuring quality through continuous delivery.
Kanban vs Scrum: What's the difference, and which should you use?Arun Kumar
Originally presented at the 207 Lean Transformation Conference, this presentation provides a practical introduction to Scrum, particularly for public sector employees, and guides you to deciding whether Kanban or Scrum will work best for your teams and projects.
Story points vs hours choose wisely; turn the bane of project estimation into...Katy Slemon
The document discusses the traditional method of estimating projects in hours versus the agile estimation method of using story points. It provides details on both methods, including perceived advantages of story points like being more flexible and collaborative. However, it also notes disadvantages like the potential to misunderstand or misuse story points. The company described, Bacancy Technology, prefers to use hours rather than story points for estimation since it is more straightforward and prevents confusion.
The document provides an overview of key concepts in the Scrum agile methodology. It defines Scrum as an iterative and incremental process combining elements of iterative and incremental development models. It then describes 10 important Scrum terminology: Scrum Team, Sprint, Product Owner, Scrum Master, User Story, Epics, Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Story Points, and Burn Down Chart. The document is intended to help software developers and testers understand the Scrum methodology.
The document discusses the development of a tool called AgilOMetric to assess an individual or organization's agile mindset. It aims to help practitioners identify where they are in their agile journey and provide guidance on areas for growth. The initial assessment includes questions regarding appropriate responses in agile situations related to scope, feedback, risk, collaboration, and developer empowerment. The results and a playbook will guide practitioners in developing a more agile mindset.
The document discusses the Fish! Philosophy, which focuses on having the right attitude at work. The philosophy emphasizes choosing a positive attitude and taking responsibility for how one responds. It advocates playing at work to foster creativity and having fun. It also stresses being emotionally present and making others feel respected through attentive communication and strong relationships. The philosophy aims to improve workplace culture by hiring and training based on attitude over just skills.
This document describes a simple activity to create positivity in a team. The activity involves team members gathering together and each writing one positive thing about every other team member on a paper plate stuck to their back without them seeing. The plates are then revealed and discussed to highlight the good qualities teammates see in each other. The goal is to emphasize the positive each person brings to the team, foster team spirit, and surprise individuals with how many nice things their peers can say about them. The document recommends teams try this activity to boost positivity.
Kamal U. Tejnani-ScrumAlliance_CSP_CertificateKamal Tejnani
Kamal U. Tejnani was awarded the Certified Scrum Professional designation on November 18, 2015 by Scrum Alliance for completing their certification requirements. He is entitled to all privileges and benefits offered by Scrum Alliance until his certification expires on November 18, 2017.
This document discusses using checklists to improve agile program management. It provides examples from aviation, construction, and healthcare where using checklists reduced errors and improved outcomes. For agile programs, checklists can be used for pre-grooming of stories, task breakouts, regression testing cycles, and production deployments. Creating positivity among team members is also important for program success. Pre-planning and pre-grooming checklists are recommended for programs where teams lack time for planning or preparation.
3. Outline
• What are Estimates
• What is NoEstimates
• Case Study on NoEstimates
• Take on NoEstimates
4. What are Estimates ?
‘to give or form a general idea about the value, size or cost of something’
- The Merriam-Webster Dictionary
From this, we can deduce that estimates are ideas.
Sometimes those ideas are vague, and other times they are very precise or
accurate, but they are ideas nonetheless.
Hence, estimates are guesses, not facts.
5. Disclaimer
• Not yet a proponent of NoEstimates
• Just presenting another perspective on Estimates and Delivery
7. What is NoEstimate
• NoEstimates is not about no estimation ever, but about the minimum
amount of estimates that will do, and then look carefully at ways to
reduce that need even more.
• In essence this means not trying to estimate the size of the work; we
just make sure we slice work into a size that we can bite on and turn
around quickly.
8. Main Goal of the NoEstimates Movement
• To help evaluate progress in a concrete – and easy to implement –
way.
9. Benefits of NoEstimates
• It is faster.
• It also forces teams to slice into smaller stories.
• Iteration Planning becomes even easier, because you just need to
understand your velocity and how many stories you can fit.
• You spend minimal time estimating.
10. How to measure Progress
• “Working software is the primary measure of progress”
RTS Stories (Running-Tested-Stories ) is the equivalent of this and is the only
metric used in NoEstimates
• 1. Requirements need to be written in a way that allows you to measure
progress early and often during the project.
• 2. Requirements need to be written in a way that provides you with the
necessary flexibility to make decisions on what part of each requirement
will be implemented later, when you better understand the system, and the
business needs.
11. NoEstimate – Progress revisited
• deliver several stories per week
• assess the time it takes to deliver multiple Stories, which would in
turn help forecast future progress.
Slice your Features and user stories so that you can review progress on
a daily or at least weekly basis. In practice this means that every week
several stories should be completed to allow you to assess progress.
And every few weeks (every month or so) several Features should be
completed.
13. When will the Project be delivered – Progress
Revisited • How many User Stories can a team deliver on an
average week? (The User Story velocity).
• How many Features can our project deliver on an
average week? (The Feature velocity)
• Is the feature comprising of the user stories the smallest,
largest or medium feature – Extrapolate remaining work
based on this.
14. NoEstimates Principles
• No Huge Stories
Each Story is small and all Stories are pretty homogenous in size which means that
you can focus on their Value instead of their cost in making a decision
• Independent Stories in a Sprint.
Each Story can be dropped from the project without affecting the overall project
delivery
• Target 1 RTS per team member per day – look out for 0 RTS for one or more
team members for more than 1 or 2 days
• Approximately same number of small-medium-big stories in each Sprint
15. NoEstimates – INVEST principle redefined
• NEGOTIABLE
o Define a very clear capability for the system, but do not dictate an implementation strategy, or
very specific functional requirements.
o This property allows the development team to select an implementation strategy that best suits
the project when the time comes to implement that Story, and
o allows the customer to be engaged in defining the detailed functionality later on based on the
running demo of the software.
• ESSENTIAL (instead of Estimable):
o A story must not only be valuable, but it’s removal must make the product
unusable or unsellable.
• SMALL
o Stories should be between 0,5 and 1 man-days of effort. Establish that as your target, and
slowly move towards that size. Your visibility to progress and quality will slowly increase as the
size of the Stories decreases.
16. NoEstimates - Workbook
• What is the most important value to be delivered by the project from the customer’s perspective?
(Purpose of Each Release)
• When does the project need to go live with the first release?
• What does the customer expect to accomplish with that first release?
• How many, and which, Running Tested Stories (RTS) do you need to deliver until that first release?
• How many RTSs have you successfully delivered during the last 2 months (the length of the project until then)?
For example, if you have 10 weeks to the next delivery and you have 20 Stories that should go into that delivery, you know you
need to deliver an average of 2 Stories per week to make that delivery. If you deliver less, you should then evaluate the scope
and make the necessary reduction. If you deliver more, you are on target and may be able to deliver more functionality at the
end of the 10 weeks.
The first question about the purpose of each release is the most important. By understanding the goal of your customer you will
be able to “steer” the delivery by evaluating, prioritizing and ultimately removing Stories from that delivery. Without an answer
to the first question, the most important tool for the #NoEstimates practitioner (scope management) will not be available.
18. Blink Estimation
“does this Story feel like it could fit into a 2-week sprint?” If the answer
was yes, we took it in, if not, then we broken it down further.
Not much time was wasted in those conversations; the goal was to
get started doing the work to assess if we were indeed able to deliver
that Story in 2 weeks.
…having a consistent rate of progress is more important than
estimating a project. This consistent rate of progress will help steer
the project in a very concrete way
19. NoEstimates – Multiple Levels of Granularity
• Features – that cannot be delivered in a n-week Sprint
• User Stories – that can be delivered in 0.5-2 day(s) within a Sprint
Approx. 2 stories
being delivered
per day
20. Rolling Wave Forecast
• At the heart of the rolling wave forecast is
the acceptance of uncertainty
• Create Scenarios of the Future
• Speculate how events will unfold and
evaluate possible outcomes for the different
events
• This forecasting mechanism allows the
project team to know when they are likely to
deliver a certain Feature and therefore also
coordinate work with external project
contributors.
21. NoEstimates – based on lessons learnt …
• only when we start working on a Story that we actually know how
long it will take to deliver
• breaking down Stories helps us assess progress at the project level
faster, and make the necessary (and inevitable) scope decisions. Not
all stories are critical
• Finally, having a consistent rate of progress is more important than
estimating a project. This consistent rate of progress will help us steer
the project in a very concrete way: reduce work or re-prioritize work
based on actual progress data, instead of a guess at a plan that will
invariably change
22. Challenges to doing NoEstimates
• Thin Vertical Slicing of User Stories as RTS of 1-day duration
• Creating Independent Stories of homogenous size (if 1 day ? )
• Historical data especially if features to be delivered are different,
technology is different, team might be different etc.
• Customer will accept reduced scope delivery
23. Case Study #1 using NoEstimates
http://www.qondor.com/
A travel and event management tool used by industry leading
companies across 9 countries, including Egencia / Expedia, the largest
travel management company in the world.
The system is mission critical to the users - if the system stops working,
they will not be able to do their job.
24. Case Study #2 using NoEstimates
• Don Wells, an early Extreme Programmer who worked on the Chrysler
Comprehensive Compensation System project (the birthplace of XP)
Each week we just choose the most important items and sign up for them up to the number from last week. It turns out that
we get about the same number of them done regardless of estimated effort. We have 1 week iterations so we tend to break
things down a bit at the iteration planning meeting.
…. the point is we get about 8 things done each week, no estimation required.
25. Does NoEstimates answer these …
To know when we can release software to our users (Missing the
season ?)
What it will roughly cost to develop and deliver the software
(Budgetary Constraints)
For Proposals (Can you say I will not give a quote ? )
Boss/Client wants it …
26. Arguments against NoEstimates
• What if Customers WANT estimates
“Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiation” – if customers want estimates, we
have to give them estimates
A US based large Financial institution outsourcing development and testing work to
India using a T & M mode
They will “want” estimates
• If a lot of the estimates are inaccurate - So should we not improve estimation
• The time spent creating estimates is wasted
But if you get better at estimating, you’ll spend less time producing better answers and
the time won’t be wasted
27. #NoEstimates versus #Estimates debate
• In which projects #NoEstimates work
• Can #NoEstimates work in big projects
• Need more case studies for #NoEstimates
28. Estimates – a simple case study
• Suppose a family wants a kitchen to be built comprising of drawers,
exhaust, floor cabinets, wall cabinets, water filter compartment, gas
cylinder cabinet, steel sink
• Budget is Rs. 2 lakhs.
Can we tell the family to prioritize everything and then we will continue
doing things in the order of priority and it will take as much money as it
takes.
At least some indication needs to be given
29. Kamal’s take on NoEstimates
• RTS
I have been doing this for a long time
Estimations
I do Relative Sizing at the Release Level and Task driven Capacity at the
Sprint level. The teams are empowered to not allow anyone to arm
twist them to take up more work than what they think they can commit
30. NoEstimates – Further Learnings
• The Ultimate Guide to Capacity Planning with NoEstimates by Tomas Rybing
• The #NoEstimates Pioneers on Video:
o Woody Zuill, the creator of the #NoEstimates hash tag on twitter
o Neil Killick, the creator of the Slicing Heuristic, a great way to reach #NoEstimates quickly
• Henri Karhatsu, greatly experienced #NoEstimates practitioner with many stories to share
• 4 video interviews with #NoEstimates practitioners
o Chris Chapman
o Marcus Hammarberg
o Allan Kelly
o Clinton Keith
• 2 video interviews with CEO’s that apply #NoEstimates in their own organizations
o Sven Ditz, CEO of Sitegeist.de in Germany
o Diego Cenzano, CEO of biko2 in Spain
.