One winds down, One winds up
We're almost to ship! The pilot agile project has just passed it's feature complete stage. Yes, not "technically" correct for scrum, but required based on external realities. Essentially we'll be doing a normal test cycle a-la waterfall. Interestingly enough, a classic test phase is very agile. We do weekly or bi-weekly drops to test (weekly sprint), run off a single, prioritized bug list (backlog) that is always being reprioritized in triage (sprint planning meeting). Bugs (stories) are worked to completion or they have no business value.
On the wind-up side, our next agile product team just did the kick-off meeting. I helped facilitate since we haven't been able to jump thru all the hoops to hire an on-site coach yet. Boy I wish I had some budget authority. Unlike our first agile project, which started half way through the cycle, with this one they have a reasonable backlog. We just did the planning poker game using Mike Cohn's estimation cards (http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com).
The planning was actually fairly smooth. There was a little back and forth. And interestingly a few items where bids ranged from 1 to 13 (cards use Fibonacci numbers, if you're not familiar with them) and represent Story Points, although I like the idea that they represent Poptart Points and on our next release we'll bid things in Watermelon Points. The estimation is actually very quick doing this instead of ideal days. People don't get so hung up on actual time or feel they're giving a delivery commitment, so the answers seemed more honest. And estimates story point estimates, since they give relative complexity, will continue to be accuratish even if five of our one point stories each take 10 days to complete (just means we'll ship some time in 2008).
Next week we'll do the first sprint planning meeting for them. Stay tuned.
On the wind-up side, our next agile product team just did the kick-off meeting. I helped facilitate since we haven't been able to jump thru all the hoops to hire an on-site coach yet. Boy I wish I had some budget authority. Unlike our first agile project, which started half way through the cycle, with this one they have a reasonable backlog. We just did the planning poker game using Mike Cohn's estimation cards (http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com).
The planning was actually fairly smooth. There was a little back and forth. And interestingly a few items where bids ranged from 1 to 13 (cards use Fibonacci numbers, if you're not familiar with them) and represent Story Points, although I like the idea that they represent Poptart Points and on our next release we'll bid things in Watermelon Points. The estimation is actually very quick doing this instead of ideal days. People don't get so hung up on actual time or feel they're giving a delivery commitment, so the answers seemed more honest. And estimates story point estimates, since they give relative complexity, will continue to be accuratish even if five of our one point stories each take 10 days to complete (just means we'll ship some time in 2008).
Next week we'll do the first sprint planning meeting for them. Stay tuned.
posted by nitpickable at
3:38 PM
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