The document discusses agile project estimation and the role of the project manager. It describes how agile teams use techniques like planning poker and story points to estimate projects, and continuously re-estimate throughout the process. The project manager's role is to focus on realizing value from releases, prioritizing the backlog, stakeholder management, and ensuring resources to achieve the overall vision. When multiple teams are involved, the project manager acts more like a product owner for product owners.

1. Estimating agile projects and the
role of the project manager
Terkel Tolstrup
August 2014

2. © 2014 Deloitte
Estimating agile
projects

3. © 2014 Deloitte
Create value!
• The agile approach is centred around
creating value. This is done by continuously
evaluating returns on investments and
thereby prioritizing initiatives.
• Estimates are used to determine whether it
is viable to develop certain initiatives.
• This can be seen as the board of directors
having a company-wide backlog of projects
and other initiatives. The projects and
initiatives are continuously prioritized and
executed.

4. Estimations are often required by organizational or external requirements without other
explanation than do this to receive funding for the project.
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The reasons to estimate
Organizational expectations:
• Authorities must to apply for
project funding
• The organization allocates
resources to the project
based on expected ROI
• Portfolio Management need
to schedule the project
according to other projects
External expectations:
• Projects can be an effect
of law regulation (e.g.
finish before given date)
• Competition affect
product launch date
• Vendors are required to
provide fixed prices

5. Before initiation of a project, the decision makers must have some idea of the size, costs and
benefits of the project.
The consequences of missing estimations can result in lack of funding, failed projects and
ultimately in shutting down the company.
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The reasons to estimate

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Does this ever happen?
http://ing.dk/artikel/fem-koebenhavnske-broer-staar-til-store-forsinkelser-efter-pihl-konkurs-161253

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The process of estimation
Step 1
Create product
backlog
Step 2
Planning
poker
Step 3
Triangulate
Step 4
Extrapolate
• Although not exact, triangulation is an effective
means for a team to verify that they aren’t
gradually altering the meaning of a story point.
• Functionality is quantified by means of story
points estimated by the development team.
• The product backlog is the list of expected
functionality. This is the baseline of the
estimation process.
• Use benchmarks, historic data and
experience to supply the development
estimates and cover the the entire project

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Creating a backlog
• Created by the product owner
based on input from stakeholders
• Make sure that number of user
stories are not overwhelming to
the extent that overview is lost
• Continuously groom the backlog
to reflect lessons learned and
keep priorities up to date

9. • The team will be estimating all inputs in
the backlog and will be continuously re-estimating
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during sprint planning
• Use Story Points to estimate instead of
time/cost. Chose one user story and
assign an estimate to get started
• Use a series of numbers like
Fibonacci's
0,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,40,100
• Estimate in prioritized order
• Execute in a time box!
• Perform quicker estimates on backlog
items further away in the prioritisation
Planning poker

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Triangulation
After an initial estimation of the backlog try to reiterate over the user
stories by comparing the estimates by relative size.
The Fibonacci numbers makes this much easy to do, as the estimates are
easier to compare relatively.

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Extrapolation
The estimation of an entire project is not just about estimating the functionality.
Prerequisites Estimation model
• Architecture
requirements
• Project model
• User interface design
requirements
• Experience from other
project
• Organization
• Organizational culture
• Maturity level
• Regulations
• Political decisions
Development
• Expected cost
• Change requests
(client)
• Change requests
(vendor)
• Test
• Documentation
• Release
Implementation
• Test
• Education
• Communication
• Organizational
change
Environment
• Infrastructure
• Integrations
• Adaptions to
existing systems
• Operations and
maintenance
• Licenses
• Reporting for
authorities
• Legislation
contributions
Internal resources
Risk buffer

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Experience based estimation
Experience based tools are used when converting story points to estimated time and
economy. This approach ensures a valid estimate.
Estimates are compared with other estimates, experience, triangulation and intuitive decision
making.

13. The right level of estimation
The project should be considered as a collection of releases. Try to split project, so that each
has fewer releases. This makes it easier to estimate, increases estimation accuracy and
minimises risk in general.
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Don't estimate too far into the future - the future is always unclear.
Don’t spend too much time on estimating – it wont improve the result!
In my experience doing top-down experience based estimates
work just as well as bottom-up detailed estimates

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Continuously monitoring estimates
Project estimates are not static throughout the project. Estimates and benefits change
according to the backlog.
Status reporting from product owners and project managers is therefore an important
element in the continuous reevaluation of return on investments.
Estimates should enshure that the
right projects are prioritized. They
should not be used as a way to micro
manage.

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Business oriented
project managers

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Business oriented project managers
- what they are not
The project manager does not need to:
 Manage the agile team.
The team is self managing
 Follow up on deliverables and milestones.
The team will do that
 Change teams processes.
The team will do that
 Make up requirements for approach.
This will be defined by the team or external
factors

17. The product owner/project manager vs. Scrum Master
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Product owner:
Responsible for the product
Focus on
• Prioritizing (value vs. size)
• Realising value from releases
• Stakeholder management
Scrum master:
Responsible for the agile process
Focus on
• Maintaining sustainable pace
• Increase learning
• Ensure commitment in the team

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Prioritizing
• Prioritize small but valuable tasks
• Ensure priorities according to epics
• Respect WIP-limit
• Respect yesterdays weather
• Communicate with team to ensure
• Sustainable pace
• Gaining value from lessons learned
• Dealing with technical debts

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Realising value from releases
All backlog items must provide capabilities that allow
realisation of benefits
Approach
• Decide how to measure benefit
• Plan implementation (marketing, education,
organizational change, …)
• Implement
• Study result
• … repeat

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Stakeholder management
Say “no” to requests and maintain a product backlog that is limited
Ensure that continuous learning also includes stakeholders
Explain risk management
• High frequency, descope releases over pushing time limit
• Because failing on a small scope is easier to mitigate than failing to get
anything

21. Business oriented project managers
- what they are
The role of the business oriented project manager is to some extent similar to the product
owner. They:
• Utilize teams deliverables to realise value
• Prioritize backlog items
• Adjust backlog to increase value based on experience from earlier releases
• Deal with stakeholders
• Handle risks identified within the project
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The project manager may also:
• Act as PO for the PO team
• Ensure resources for realising
the vision of the project
• Perform vendor management
(tendering, contracts, billing, …)

22. Product owner vs the business oriented project manager
When there are only one (or few) teams the project manager role will be covered by the
product owner. This means that the project manager can focus on a larger perspective and
become a PO of POs.
The business oriented project manager hence focus on:
• Cross-cutting activities
• Multi-disciplinary requirements (requiring e.g.
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external contractors)
• The long perspective (spanning years rather than
months)
• A wider range of stakeholders, some of whom may
suffer dis-benefits
• The direction of the project in the light of experience
and external events.
Other activities done by the project manager are:
• Work with portfolio manager to understand objectives and budget
• Develop and communicate product vision
• Define releases and participate in release management
• Build an effective product owner team

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Questions?

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