Estimation techniques for Scrum Teams

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Estimation Techniques
for Scrum Teams
Morning Talk Series
By Jesus Mendez

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Estimation Techniques for Scrum Teams
Morning Talk Series: Transforming Teams
About You

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I’m passionate reader who nurtures from
curiosity by connecting with people and finding
ways to change the world by learning and
sharing, one conversation at a time. An
authentic dancer who uses coaching to help
himself and others to thrive.
About Me
Twitter: @chuzzete

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Morning Talk Series: Transforming TeamsLink to BOOK / WEBSITE Morning Talk Series: Transforming Teams
0. Introduction (Warm up)
0.5 Context (Agile Scrum) (5 minutes)
1. Thoughts about Estimation in Software Development (10 minutes)
2. Thoughts about the #NoEstimates movement (20 minutes)
3. Estimating Scrum Projects – Challenges (10 minutes)
 Let’s reflect about our biggest challenges when estimating scrum projects
 Write down the biggest challenges that you’re facing
 Let’s share them in groups of three-four people
 What have we learned? Any similarities?
4. Our role in the Estimation process (5 Minutes)
5. Coffee Break (5 Minutes)
6. Estimation Techniques Workshop (60 Minutes)
 Absolute Estimates
 Planning Poker
 Affinity Estimation
 Relative Estimation
7. Coffee Break (5 Minutes)
8. Final thoughts (Retrospective) – (30 Minutes)
9. What’s next (5 Minutes)
Proposed Agenda

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Individuals
Teams
Divisions
Organization
Consume + Request
CONTEXT

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CONTEXT

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TEAMS
Agile Values
 Customer Collaboration
 Individuals & Interactions
 Working Software
 Responding to change
Agile Mindset
 Iterative approach
 Continuous Feedback
 Self-Organization
 Working together
 Have fun
 Get better results faster
CONTEXT

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CONTEXT
Individuals
Teams
Divisions
Organization

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Forming Agile Teams - Flow
Techniques for Forming Agile Teams
1
Planning
The Team
Transformation
Process 2
Team
Transformation
Process
Kickoff
B
Product
Road
Mapping
(Team Level)
3 Iteration
Planning
4 Daily
Sync
5 Help Team
stay
focused
8 Iteration
Retrospective
Team
Performance
Satisfaction 7Iteration
Review
9 Iteration
Report
A
Product
Road
Mapping
(Stakeholder Level)
6 Product
Backlog
Refinement
Iteration
Review
Preparation
I
T
E
R
A
T
I
O
N
1 or 2 Weeks

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WHAT’S
THAT?

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THOUGHTS ABOUT ESTIMATION (SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT)
What’s that ?
Human Evaluation(Amount of Work to develop something)= Estimation
=
Human Evaluation
Amount of work
Estimation

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THOUGHTS ABOUT ESTIMATION (the optimism bias)
(also known as unrealistic or comparative optimism)
cognitive bias that causes a
person to believe that they are
less at risk of experiencing a
negative event compared to
others.
Even though if we have
Previous experience

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THOUGHTS ABOUT ESTIMATION (cognitive bias/the optimism bias)

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WHY DO WE
ESTIMATE
PROJECTS?

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THOUGHtS ABOUT ESTIMATION (WHAT’S FOR?)
PROJECT
IS PROFITABLE
FITS INTO THE SPRINT
WHAT TO DO
IN A SPRINTWHAT BRINGS
MORE VALUE
REQUIRED
RESOURCES
BUDGET TO HELP
DECIDE GO OR NOT GO
TEAM ENGAGEMENT

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THOUGHTS ABOUT ESTIMATION (WHAT’S FOR?)
ESTIMATION

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WHAT’S
THE ULTIMATE
GOAL?

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Estimation Techniques for Scrum teams
People get:
- Very caught up in the actual number, forgetting that it’s just an estimate
and wrong anyway.
- Very emotionally invested in being “right”, they start defending their
estimates, or giving in to the majority without discussion.
- There is confusion between team members about the proper way to
estimate effort.
When the real deal when estimating effort is
to get a Shared Understanding and Consensus,
it is just a way to plan and know where we are against the plan.
THE ULTIMATE GOAL (AGILE CONTEXT)
Relative estimate vs. absolute
80/20
Rule
L.E.B.E
Rule
Getting about 80% right estimates
with 20% of the effort
Less Effort Better Estimates

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WHAT ABOUT
OTHER
ALTERNATIVES?

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THE #NOESTIMATES MOVEMENT

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GO BACK TO THE SOURCE
ESTIMATION
SIMPLE
REDUCE WASTE
THE #NOESTIMATES MOVEMENT

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HACK 1. Minimize Importance of the Decision
Approximate
Direction
Learn
iteratively
Adapt
Collaborate
Flexible Team Roadmap
based on goals
achievable within
the next Quarter
Sprint results
vs
Team Roadmap
Adapt
Team Roadmap
Each Sprint
keep
Team Roadmap
Visible for the team
 FAIL EARLY
 LEARN FASTER
 REDUCED COST
 FLEXIBILITY
#NOESTIMATES HACKs

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HACK 2. Focus on the Vision
Product Vision
Regularly revised
Prioritized
Backlog
Short Iterations
focus is on existing
projects only
(Short term)
Feedback
Product Vision
Clearly established
Product Backlog
Well Sliced
Progress iteratively
#NOESTIMATES HACKs

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HACK 3. Set a limited budget
Set small amount of money
for a short period of time
•Iteration reviews each week
Decide to continue or not by
the end of the period
HELP US DECIDE AFTER TRYING => Reduce risk without planning at the beginning
#NOESTIMATES HACKs

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HACK 4. Amount of stories completed vs velocity
Prerequisite
User story decoupling
Is properly done
Experiences Agile Teams
Fine
Stories
Prioritized
Backlog
#Amount
Stories
delivered
#NOESTIMATES HACKs

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HACK 4. Amount of stories completed vs velocity
12
15.0
16.0
10.0
13.0
8.0
17.0
26.0
11.0
20.0
13.00
14.00
9.00
13.00
11.00
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
#Items completed vs Completed Story Points x sprint
# Items Completed
Completed (Story Points)
# Forecast
Linear (# Items Completed)
Linear (Completed (Story Points))
#NOESTIMATES HACKs

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WHAT’S OUR ROLE
IN THE
ESTIMATION
PROCESS?

Our Role as Scrum Master
Connect people and make things happen
COMMON SENSE INSTALLERS

MAKE THINGS VISIBLE

HELP
PEOPLE

MAKE IT
EASIER

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Estimation at different levels
T-SHIRT
SIZES
Affinity
Estimates
Planning
Poker
Absolute
Estimates
Sprints
Story
Points
Story
Points
Hours
Sprints

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Content
2
3
Planning Poker
Relative
Estimation
1
4
Absolute Estimates
Affinity estimation
Rules
- 4 Exercises.
- 10 Minutes duration per exercise.
- Team had to estimate items using a diff. technique.
- Each team got a set of cards with items written on
them.
- Each team got the same items so we could compare
between teams at the end.
- When each team finished estimating, the facilitator
wrote results per team in a flip chart/white board,
and start the discussion about the technique.
- The facilitator shared correct answers once each
team has completed each exercise.
- A general discussion is hold about all techniques and
the team decides where we go from here
Estimation techniques workshop

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Description
The items to be estimated are dogs.
Instructions
- Each team have to estimate the weight of each dog(item) in
kilograms
- Each team discuss about the item to get shared understanding
- After consensus, the team should decide what estimate would be
assigned to each dog (item)
Special note
- To be able to compare each estimation technique, all teams should
try their best to get results as soon as they can.
Exercise 1: Absolute Estimates

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Item Team 1 Team 2 Team 3 Team 4 Team 5 Correct
Answer
Chihuahua 3
Great Dane 90
Staffordshir
e Bull Terrier
17
Appalachian
Mountain
Dog
0
Border
Collie
34
American
Cocker
Spaniel
13
Exercise 1: Absolute estimation Results

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Description
The items to be estimated are country area. Remember that this technique is
used for relative estimation
Instructions
- Use Spain as your reference point (Value assigned to Spain Area is 3)
- Each team have to estimate the area of each country(item)
- Each team discuss about the item to get shared understanding, then each person chooses a card
from their set that they think is the closes fit.
- Everyone displays their cards at the same time (avoid influencing other between each other).
- People discuss the outliers, usually the highest and lowest numbers to see of the people who
selected them, had a different understanding to everyone else.
- After discussion, people re-vote taking in consideration anything uncovered in the discussion.
- Once everyone converges on a number that is selected as the estimate.
- If convergence is not reached by the third vote, then the team would take the highest number or
majority number.
Special note
- To be able to compare each estimation technique, all teams should try their best to get
results as soon as they can.
Exercise 2: Planning Poker

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Answer
Spain 3 3 3 3 3 3
China 40
Luxembourg 0
Denmark 1
South Africa 8
Belize 1
Exercise 2: Planning Poker Results

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Description
The items to be estimated are cars volume. Remember that this technique is
used for relative estimation
Instructions
- Lay out one set of planning poker cards so that you have all the numbers.
- Agree on a reference story, and place it next to the reference point. In this case put the card
“Convertible” next to the Planning poker card identified with the number “3”.
- Give the stack of story cards to the first person in the team.
- Each person has a turn where you can either:
- take a new car from the stack of story cards and place it where you think it fits, or
- Move a card already on the table to a new spot if you don’t agree with it.
- Note: You must always move a card if you don’t agree with the estimate rather than playing a new one
- Note2: If you play a new card it means you are happy with every card on the table.
- After your turn you hand the cards to the next person.
- If you do a full circuit of the team and one card has been moved each time, then you discuss it
before continuing.
- Note: People could explain why they are placing a card at a certain number, but remember,
open discussion just when a card was moved.
Exercise 3: Affinity Estimation

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Answer
Motorbike
Startship
enterprize
SUV
Minivan
Convertible 3 3 3 3 3 3
Bus
Exercise 3: Affinity estimation Results

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Description
The items to be estimated are Animal weight.
Remember that this technique is used for relative
estimation
Instructions
- Take all story cards and arrange them on the table in ascending size (ignore
the reference point for now)
- Decide what is bigger and what’s the same size (It can be done all team
members together)
- Once you the team has arranged all cards, only then assign numbers,
starting with the reference point (the “impala” in this case)
Exercise 4: Relative Estimation

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Answer
Elephant
Giraffe
Elephant
shrew
crocodile
snake
impala 3 3 3 3 3 3
Exercise 4: Relative estimation Results

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References
Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing, http://www.amazon.com/Forming-Storming-
Norming-Performing-
Communication/dp/1475968434/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1445431235&sr=8-
1&keywords=forming+teams
The Five dysfunctions of a Team, http://www.amazon.com/Overcoming-Five-Dysfunctions-
Team-Facilitators/dp/0787976377/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1445431275&sr=8-
1&keywords=overcoming+the+five+dysfunctions+of+a+team
The Pause Principle http://www.amazon.com/Pause-Principle-Forward-Kevin-
Cashman/dp/B00DEK8RUI/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1445431361&sr=1-
2&keywords=pause+principle
The Secret of Teams, http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Teams-What-Great-
Know/dp/1609940938/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1445431429&sr=1-
1&keywords=the+secrets+of+teams
Coaching Agile Teams, http://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Agile-Teams-ScrumMasters-
Addison-Wesley/dp/0321637704/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1445431456&sr=1-
1&keywords=coaching+agile+teams

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Book: http://www.leanpub.com/forming_agile_teams
Twitter: @chuzzete
Website: www.jesusmendez.ca
Email: transformingteams@jesusmendez.ca
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Estimation techniques for Scrum Teams

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