building software to
help our clients grow
SINCE 1985
Agile Project Estimating,
Planning and Tracking
Andrew Nichols, Certified Scrum Master
Andrew.Nichols@tallan.com
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 www.tallan.com 7/3/2009

Agenda
 How to plan an Agile project
 Develop product backlog
 Estimating backlog
 Calculating project duration and budget
 Prioritize backlog
 Release planning
 How to track an Agile project
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009

Develop Product Backlog
Product Backlog
 List for all features desired in system
 User Stories
 Use Cases
 Just list the features any way you want
 This isopen to change
 Not everything will be implemented
 Ideas not on the list will be discovered along
the way
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 2

Develop Product Backlog
# Description
1 Story A
2 Story B
3 Story C
4 Story D
5 Story E
6 Story F
7 Story G
8 Story H
9 Story I
10 Story J
11 Story K
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 3

Product Backlog Exercise
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 4

Petbook
Social network for pet owners
Petbook will be a website which connects pet owners
together so that they can network and exchange
information about their pets and find other pet
owners like them.
Petbook will be a brand new website and should
NOT be a replica of Facebook.
It will be developed from scratch and will not use
any existing social networking platform.
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 5

Estimating Backlog
How long
will this
take?
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 6

Productivity: Time vs. Quality
Stanley Eisenstat at Yale. CS 323 Programming Assignments Show
10:1 difference in productivity
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009

Estimating Backlog
Ideal Days Story Points
 Measurement of duration  Measurement of effort not
 Should be relative duration
 Meaningless without velocity  Relative not absolute
 Difficult to get management  Meaningless without velocity
away from calendar days  Difficult for management to
understand
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 8

Estimating Backlog
Story Points
Exponential Series Modified Fibonacci Series
18
16 100
14
12
10
8
6 40
4 20
2 13
5 8
0 0 1 2 3
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 9

Estimation
Methods of Estimation
 Expert Judgment
 Analogy
 Disaggregation
 Planning Poker
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 10

Estimation
Planning Poker
1. Everyone has set of cards with points on them
2. Discuss the feature to be estimated
3. Everyone shows card with estimate
simultaneously
4. If all cards same then you are done
5. If there is disparity then go to 2
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 11

Planning Poker Exercise
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 12

Product Backlog
# Description Effort (Story Points)
1 Story A 2
2 Story B 8
3 Story C 8
4 Story D 1
5 Story E 13
6 Story F 5
7 Story G 2
8 Story H 5
9 Story I 1
10 Story J 3
11 Story K 5
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 13

Iteration Planning
Velocity
 Points completed per iteration
 Best determined imperially
 Worst case make an assumption
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 14

Duration and Budget
Estimated Duration
P= Points per story
 V = Velocity
D
P
V
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 15

Duration and Budget
Estimated Budget
 R = Run rate per iteration
B  R D
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 16

Calculate Duration and Budget Exercise
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 17

Prioritize Backlog
Methods of Prioritization
 Financial Prioritization
 Desirability Prioritization
 Not used for Mandatory features
 Used to trade off between optional features
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 18

Prioritization Tips
 Use numbers to assign priority
 Higher priority = higher number
 No 2 stories have same priority
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 19

Prioritization Exercise
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 20

Product Backlog
# Description Effort (Story Points) Priority
1 Story A 2 100
2 Story B 8 101
3 Story C 8 90
4 Story D 1 95
5 Story E 13 50
6 Story F 5 35
7 Story G 2 30
8 Story H 5 25
9 Story I 1 20
10 Story J 3 15
11 Story K 5 10
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 21

Release Planning
Release Planning
 Plan 2-3 iterations out
 Break stories up vertically if necessary
 Set a commitment base goal
 Set a stretch goal (base + 20%)
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 22

Product Backlog
# Description Effort (Story Priority Iteration
Points)
1 Story A 2 100 1
2 Story B 8 101 1
3 Story C 8 90 2
4 Story D 1 95 2
5 Story E 13 50 3
6 Story F 5 35
7 Story G 2 30
8 Story H 5 25
9 Story I 1 20 2
10 Story J 3 15
11 Story K 5 10
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 23

Release Planning
Tips
 Always meet your commitment
 Always deliver afew of the stretch goals
 Discuss plan with entire team
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 24

Agenda
 How to plan an Agile project
 How to track an Agile project
 Tracking Velocity
 Projecting Duration and Budget
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009

Tracking Progress
 Iteration and team level not developer
 Completed features not specs or documents
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 26

Tracking Velocity
35
33
31
29
27 Velocity
25 Average Velocity
23
21
19
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 27

Duration and Budget
Projected Duration
D p  DS 
P r
VA
Projected Budget
BP  BS  R  DP
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 28

Buffering for Risk and Uncertainty
P   A (w1  a1 )  (w2  a2 )  (w3  a3 ) ...
2 2 2
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 29

Buffering
Buffering for Risk and Uncertainty
 Estimate average case effort estimate
 Estimate worst case effort estimate
 (worst – average)2
 Total points = Sum of average + square root of
sum of squares
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 30

Product Backlog
# Description Average Case Worst Case (worst – average)2
1 Story A 2 3 1
2 Story B 8 13 25
3 Story C 8 20 144
4 Story D 1 2 1
5 Story E 13 40 729
6 Story F 5 8 9
7 Story G 2 8 36
8 Story H 5 8 9
9 Story I 1 2 1
10 Story J 3 5 4
11 Story K 5 8 9
53 117 968
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 31

Buffering
Average Case = 53
Buffer = 31
Total Points = 53 + 31 = 84
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 32

Buffering
Benefits
 Results in more predictable schedule up front
 Identifies high risk stories
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 33

Conclusions
# of points are meaningless
# of stories are meaningless
What’s important:
Velocity vs. Total Points
Always complete some of the stretch goals
Tallan, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. Copyright 2009 7/3/2009 34