Agile Estimation

1. Agile Estimation • V. Lee Henson CST

2. Founded in 2007 - Salt Lake City, UT • Personally Trained, Coached, and or Mentored at 41 of the Fortune 100 Companies • Deep understanding of Agile & Traditional Project Management, (PMP), RUP, Lean, Kanban, Scrum, (CST), XP, & PMI-ACP • Proven Applied Agile Principles in Software, Hardware, Financial, Insurance, Construction, Medical, Marketing, Legal, Entertainment, Research, Military, Government, Retail, Education, Law Enforcement, and many more... • Website: http://www.AgileDad.Com www.synerzip.com

3. V. Lee Henson CST Certified Scrum Trainer Project Management Professional PMI- Agile Certified Practitioner Certified Lean Agile Professional Motivational Speaker & Executive Coach Author of The Definitive Agile Checklist Inventor of Rapid Release Planning Information Technology / Psychology www.synerzip.com

4. Objectives: • What am I going to get? • When am I going to get it? • How much is it going to cost? www.synerzip.com

5. Agile vs. Plan Driven www.synerzip.com

6. www.synerzip.com

7. Scrum vs. Waterfall www.synerzip.com

8. The 3 C’s of a Good User Story: • 1) The Card - The topic of the backlog item, the high level description of the desired system behavior. • 2) The Conversation - Detailed requirements are only discovered after the backlog item has been pulled into a sprint. This is a dialog between the product owner and the development team. • 3) The Confirmation - Criteria that insures the backlog item was completed to the specifications of the product owner. The customer will evaluate the competed backlog item against the acceptance criteria, and if all tests pass, approve the backlog item by the end of the sprint. www.synerzip.com

9. Business Priority MoSCoW Title - The title should be 10 words or less. H-M-L M-S-C-W Description- As a ________ I would like to ______________________________ so that ______________________________. XS - S- M - L - XL T-Shirt Size The Index Card - Overview: www.synerzip.com

10. Writing a Good User Story Description Template: • As a _________________________ I would like to __________________ so that ________________________________. • Example: As a (role or persona), I would like to (execute an activity), so that I can (see or achieve a value or benefit). www.synerzip.com

11. High Each Sprint implements The highest priority features Each new feature is Prioritized & added to the stack Features may be reprioritized At any time Features may be removed At any time Low Features Product Backlog Design: • All possible system features are captured in a stack rank ordered list called the product backlog. • New features can be added to the backlog at any time. • Features in the backlog have a gross estimate of effort and or value. www.synerzip.com

12. Breaking Down The Work: www.synerzip.com

13. What About Business Priority? • We all know the business has a 3 point ranking scale for priority of backlog items: High, Really High, or Really Really High. • The business needs to use tools to help them understand that not everything can be of the highest priority. • With the understanding that we would not be doing the work if it were not important, which items have the greatest urgency? Can we arrange them into High, Medium, and Low categories? Two websites to assist with priority:http://dotmocracy.orghttp://www.innovationgames.com www.synerzip.com

14. Time vs. Relative Complexity: • Let’s paint the room! • How many hours will it take? • Why all of the different answers? • Have any of you painted before? • Compared to something else you have painted, would it be easier to determine how difficult it would be to paint the room? • Is it easier to reach consensus? www.synerzip.com

15. Planning Poker - Does It Work? www.synerzip.com

16. Let’s Use a T-Shirt Size... • Smaller Than XS = a Task. • Extra Small = 1 • Small = 2 • Medium = 3 • Large = 5 • Extra Large = 8 • Larger than XL = an Epic www.synerzip.com

17. Understanding MoSCoW: • MoSCoW = more than a Russian Capital • Must Have • Should Have • Could Have • Would Like • Every iteration should have a mix of the above types of items. • Stake holders LOVE the Would Likes. • The Product Owner drives the product backlog and creates the rank order based heavily on the MoSCoW ratings. www.synerzip.com

18. Understanding Velocity: The rate at which a team can produce working software Measured in non-time-referent terms (e.g., Story Points) per Sprint More accurately stated, it is measured in terms of the stabilizednumber of Story Points a team can deliver per sprint of a given length, and with a given definition of Done. Used for estimation and planning Can be artificially increased by cutting corners on quality Must have stabilized to be reliable Should not be used as a measure of comparison across teams Lean concept of Limiting Work to Capacity www.synerzip.com

19. Velocity - An Example: Example: Team A is working in 2-week sprints on work that it has estimated together. Team A has been working together for several sprints, and consistently delivers between 18 and 23 points of working software every sprint. We could reasonably expect Team A to deliver roughly 20 points per 2-week sprint, and so we consider that to be the team’s velocity for planning purposes. If there are eight 2-week sprints in a release, we can extrapolate that Team A has the capability to deliver 160 points in a release. www.synerzip.com

20. Connecting The Dots: Size (complexity) is estimated A story is estimated to be 3 story points in relative complexity Velocity is measured “Team A can deliver 20 story points in a 3-week sprint” Duration is derived - “Based on Team A’s measured velocity of 20 story points per sprint, it will take Team A 3 sprints to deliver 60 story points.” www.synerzip.com

21. In Other Words... Backlog Item estimates answer the question “how big?”, rather than “how long?” Size estimates and observed Velocity, used together, are answer the question “how long?” www.synerzip.com

22. Iteration Planning Daily Planning Release Planning Product Roadmap Product Vision T-0 T+1 to T+14 T-60 to T-45 T-365 to T-90 T-365 The Five Levels of Agile Planning Agile teams plan their projects at 5 levels: www.synerzip.com

23. Questions? http://www.agiledad.com/ www.synerzip.com

24. Thank You! Lee@AgileDad.Com- Twitter @AgileDad - LinkedIn leehenson@gmail.com www.synerzip.com

25. www.synerzip.com Hemant Elhence hemant@synerzip.com 469.322.0349 Questions? 25 25 www.synerzip.com

26. 1. Software product development partner for small/mid-sized technology companies Exclusive focus on small/mid-sized technology companies, typically venture-backed companies in growth phase By definition, all Synerzip work is the IP of its respective clients Deep experience in full SDLC – design, dev, QA/testing, deployment 2. Dedicated team of high caliber software professionals for each client Seamlessly extends client’s local team, offering full transparency Stable teams with very low turn-over NOT just “staff augmentation”, but provide full mgmt support 3. Actually reduces risk of development/delivery Experienced team - uses appropriate level of engineering discipline Practices Agile development – responsive, yet disciplined 4. Reduces cost – dual-shore team, 50% cost advantage 5. Offers long term flexibility – allows (facilitates) taking offshore team captive – aka “BOT” option Synerzip in a Nut-shell www.synerzip.com

27. Our Clients www.synerzip.com

28. Thanks! www.synerzip.com Hemant Elhence hemant@synerzip.com 469.322.0349 Call Us for a Free Consultation! 28 28 www.synerzip.com