Drop Estimaterne

Forget about estimation!
May 13th 2014
Jesper Boeg, Process Development Lead, Creuna
Owner, www.AgileUpgrade.com
www.AgileUpgrade.com
VP –
g
A
k
r
Trifo
e
c
n
e
l
el
c
x
E
ile
2
Agenda
1 
2 
3 
4 
What not to do
How estimates really work
The simple alternative
Tracking and reporting
© Creuna
Om Creuna
Kort om Creuna
Type
Nyere bureautype.
Digitalt udspring.
Full-service.
Alder
Født digital i 2001.
Størrelse
© Creuna
340+ ansatte. 7 kontorer i alle 4
nordiske lande. Største bureau
af vores art i Norden.
Ca. 90 i Danmark.
Creuna helps clients build brands,
grow business and harness change
in the connected world.
© Creuna
Forretning, design og teknologi – under ét tag.
Business
Communication
© Creuna
Technology
Vores kompetencer
St
Ic
Ux
Strategy
services
Ideation &
concepts
User
Experience
Ct
Sd
Ia
Content
production
© Creuna
System
development
Insights &
Analytics
Bd
Branding
& Design
Pm
Project
management
Du finder os her
Helsinki
Oslo
Stavanger
Stockholm
Gøteborg
Aarhus
© Creuna
Helsingborg
København
Vores kunder
© Creuna
Known knowledge
© Creuna
Why estimate?
© Creuna
What not to do
2 User Stories, 3 hours, 5 people
© Creuna
Why do we make the same mistakes
again and again and again
© Creuna
The blame game
© Creuna
Expecting manufacturing precision
© Creuna
Why don’t we just ask the tech-lead?
© Creuna
I have made it easy for you
© Creuna
Using time
© Creuna
Expecting the team to know
© Creuna
Could I borrow two days of your
time for estimation?
© Creuna
Detail != predictability
© Creuna
Tasks are not for planning and
reporting
© Creuna
Story point machine
© Creuna
How estimates
really work
Guesstimate is not a real word
© Creuna
Estimates are a distribution
© Creuna
Story points considered harmful
http://
softwaredevelopmenttoday.blogspot
.co.uk/2012/01/story-pointsconsidered-harmful-or-why.html
© Creuna
#NoEstimates - problems
© Creuna
Distribution with overlapping tails
Frequency
© Creuna
Small
Medium
Effort
Large
Variability pooling – the good news
Average = DKK 5002
© Creuna
Variability pooling
Average = DKK 5055
© Creuna
The simple
alternative
T-shirt Sizes and story points
1
3
8
20
40
100
35
Keep it comparative
Follow these simple rules
•  New items in the backlog are estimated at the daily standup-meeting
•  ALL estimates are comparative and in story points
•  User Stories are ONLY re-estimated if they drastically change or are broken
down
•  All defects are assigned the same estimate (in our case XS) and only count if
they are found on functionality that has been more than 1 month in production
•  Completed points are based on features deployed to the production
environment (or similar)
•  Point -> $ is based on data (as soon as it becomes available)
Roughly 0.4 percent is spent on
estimation – that is 1/250
© Creuna
New team on a new project IS
different
Gut feeling
Comparison with
other projects
© Creuna
Worst/Best/Realistic Tshirt estimation
If you need estimates to push teamperformance
© Creuna
Tracking and
reporting
Real backlogs do not look like this
But more like this
Predictability
Really we want it here
Backlog
Specification
Too many focus here
Sprint Ready
Sprint Backlog
Develop-ment
Easy from here
Test
Demo
QA
Prod
Accepted
44
Velocity is the easiest metric to
game
CFD
Velocity
WIP
Arrival Rate
Cycle Time
46
Cycle time
Data beats detail
DKK 3250
DKK 4500
DKK 5875
© Creuna
The power of data
© Creuna
Improvement
© Creuna
Probabilistic forecasting
Frequency
© Creuna
90 percent
Effort
99 percent
Don’t forget the vision
© Creuna
Take-aways
•  Don’t use estimates for blame games and don’t expect the team to know
•  Estimates are a distribution – NOT a single number
•  #NoEstimates is an interesting movement but with a narrow focus on
predictability
•  Story Points and T-shirt sizes can make it much easier to acknowledge
uncertainty
•  Data beats detail every time!
•  Don’t make output velocity goals. Velocity is far too easy to game and you will
lose your predictability on the way
•  Don’t forget the Vision
© Creuna