Agile Estimation Distilled
Agile Estimation Distilled
About the Book
A majority of Agile teams use story points and planning poker for relative sizing and estimation purposes. If you ask a cross-section of people if estimation is necessary, the majority will reply in the affirmative. However, if you ask if they are able to do it successfully, you will find very few people who say yes.
One of the basic reasons is - software estimation in itself is a complex decision-making context. Any long-term estimation in the software domain is bound to be wrong. With an elongated span of time, the uncertainty increases and so does the variability in the estimation.
On the Product Backlog Item level estimation, though story points are used, most teams have their own interpretation of the subject. Eventually, story points in themselves have become a complex concept similar to pointers in the C programming language that most teams use it but rarely get it right.
A lot of material has already been written about Agile estimation. However, it becomes difficult to join all the dots together at one place for anyone to digest. This book is an attempt to simplify learning and make the concept as clear as possible so that people can simply say, "I get it".
This book is an essential guide for Scrum Masters, Product Owners, developers, and Agile coaches who want to refine their estimation techniques and ensure their teams can deliver value predictably and efficiently. Whether you’re new to Agile or looking to deepen your understanding, “Agile Estimation Distilled” provides the tools and knowledge needed to master the art of estimation in a world where uncertainty is the norm.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Some Misnomers in Software Development
- Some Flawed Interpretations in Agile Estimation
- Software Estimation with Traditional Mindset
- Why this book?
- Target Audience
- Structure of the Book
- References
- Relative Sizing
- What is Raltive Sizing
- Why not Hours Based Estimation?
- Why Relative Sizing
- References
- What is a Story Point?
- Amount of the work involved
- Complexity
- Uncertainty/Risk
- A Product Backlog Item Example
- References
- Story Point Sizing with Planning Poker
- Why Fibonacci numbers?
- Identifying a Baseline Product Backlog Item
- Conversation on a Product Backlog Item Before Planning Poker Exercise
- The Planning Poker in Action
- References
- Who all should Participate in Story Point Sizing Activity?
- What’s wrong in developers and testers estimating their own activities separately?
- References
- The Quest Towards Perfect Estimation
- Why People Strive for Perfect Estimation?
- Is Perfect Estimation Helpful?
- The Alternate and Agile Approach: Embrace Imperfection
- Conclusion: The Myth of Perfect Estimation
- References
- Backlog Refinement and Estimation
- What’s Product Backlog Refinement?
- The Trouble with Product Backlog Refinement Conversations
- Making Refinement Conversations More Engaging
- Common Theme During Backlog Refinement
- References
- Definition of Ready and Backlog Refinement
- When is a backlog item Ready?
- The Readiness of Product Backlog
- Backlog Refinement Session and Readiness
- References
- Forecast the Number of Story Points in a Sprint or Timelines?
- Velocity
- Forecasting Story Points for a Sprint and Predicting Timelines
- Conclusion
- References
- Sprint planning and Sprint Backlog
- Preparation for Sprint Planning
- Setting the Sprint Goal
- Selecting Product Backlog Items for the Sprint
- Creating a Plan to Achieve the Sprint Goal
- Collaboration and Communication
- Review and Adjust
- Conclusion
- References
- Collaborative Daily Scrum
- Daily Scrum
- Walk the Wall Stand-up Meeting
- Collaborative Daily Scrum
- Example
- Collaborative Daily Scrum on First Day of Sprint
- Collaborative Daily Scrum on Subsequent Days of the Sprint
- References
- Should We Map Story Points with Hours?
- Team Velocity Mapped to Team Capacity Doesn’t Change
- Velocity Does Not Improve Forever
- Mapping Story Points to Time Doesn’t Help
- Should We Use T-Shirt Sizing Instead of Story Points?
- Should We Count Story Points for Unfinished Product Backlog Items?
- What about story points of unfinished backlog items?
- Estimating with Specialists in the Team
- The Impact of a Team Composed Solely of Specialists on Agility
- Moving Towards Learning Person Culture
- How People Become T-Shaped in a Scrum team?
- How should we Hire?
- Conclusion
- How to Handle Interruptions During Sprint
- Vague Acceptance Criteria
- Sprint Length Too Long for the Business
- Story Points for Bugs or Defects
- How Should We Size Non-Functional Stories?
- Infrastructure Cost
- Test Writing and Test Execution Cost
- Ongoing Fine Tuning Cost
- Should We Compare the Velocity of Two Different Teams?
- Comparing team velocity is not useful
- Should We Re Estimate or Not?
- Outcome Oritented Agility and Agile Estimation
- References
- When Story Point Estimation May Not Prove Useful
- Using Story Points Just Because Supposedly Agile Methods Require Them
- Not knowing what a story point actually is
- Separate test and development sizing
- Backlog Items Already Assigned to Individuals and No Further Collaboration Thereafter
- Estimating Similar Sized Stories
- Estimation for Scaled Teams
- A Case for Aggregate Velocity
- References
- Working Collaboratively (Pairing, Mobbing, Swarming) and Estimation
- 1. Pair Programming
- 2. Mob Programming
- 4. Swarming
- Collaborative Programming in Agile: How Agile Teams Increase Throughput
- References
- Alternate of Story Point Estimation in Agile World
- Friction in Story Point Education
- #NoEstimates
- References
- Agile for Fixed Price Contracts
- Challenges in Fixed-Price Agile Project
- How to Handle Fixed-Price Contracts Challenges?
- Conclusion
- References
- Introduction
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