Every now and then, I need to remind people what is the point of this agile thing. I know, I know, still they forget. Agility is the ability of the organization to react effectively to changes in a volatile environment. The “more” agile the organization, it can cope better, faster to things thrown at it.
I don’t like story points. I think this is part of my crusade against complexity. You can catch a glimpse of it here. Story points were invented as supporting beams for the bridge between business and development that would later be called agile. They started with a very good concept that wasn’t there before: The story.
The main dysfunctions we concentrate on when talking about estimates are how they (and the people who gave them) are treated once they are given. Management asks for estimations and then either: Disregards them completely and sets a deadline that ignores the estimates, made by the people who actually know and will do the work. Inflate them
What makes a successful project? Waterfall project management tells us it’s about meeting scope, time and cost goals. Do these success metrics also hold true to agile projects? Let’s see. In agile projects we learn new information all the time. It’s likely that the scope will change over time, because we find out things we
We like numbers because of their symbolic simplicity. In other words, we get them. They give us certainty, and therefore confidence. Which sounds more trustworthy: “It will take 5 months” or “It will take between 4 to 6 months”? The first one sounds more confident, and therefore we trust it more. After all, why don’t
“Why would you want a rough estimate, when I can do a more precise one?” And really, if we can do something better, why do it half way? There’s a simple answer, but I’ll give it after the long detailed one. Let’s start by asking again: Why estimate at all? There’s a whole #NoEstimates discussion,
The main difficulty with forecasting the future is that it hasn’t yet happened. – James Burke When I first heard about #NoEstimates, I thought it was not only provocative, it can also be damaging. The idea of working without estimates seems preposterous to many people. It did to me. I mean, how can you plan
A couple of comments on my last post (the sad truth about agile planning) made me think: Maybe I was slamming agile planning too much. Then I thought (after an elaborate discussion with myself) – I wasn’t doing that at all! So let’s put some things in perspective: Can I make a plan for the
If you’ve read any basic agile stuff, you know that agile teams deliver value in a consistent frequency. The team works on what’s important first, giving the best value for money. When working in a consistent velocity, you can estimate very accurately when features are going to be delivered. Prepare yourself for a shock. It