Estimation trouble
Estimation is an essential part of any projects. You should pay lots of attention for this activity. Thanks to estimation you can do a better planning and this is the beginning of your success. Moreover, it can help your team to organize its work better. In this post I will point out things that can disrupt your estimation. If you are facing at least one of them I encourage you to have a meeting with your team to decide on actions that should be taken.
Estimation is made only by one/few person from the team
It is whole team who is responsible for delivering given functionality, so all (or almost all) members should give their inputs on story estimation. They should agree together on estimation's result. Of course, there are some situation that only one person is an expert in given domain, however in such case others opinion is appreciated as well as they can have different views.
Estimation is made by customer (product owner)
It is a team who does a commitment, not a product owner. Some negotiation between customer and team can take place there, but the final estimation should be done by team.
Estimation is made by team leader
Team leader should act as facilitator during estimation process. He should help a team to provide an accurate estimations together with protecting customer's interest. However, he is not allowed to decide how many hours are required to finish given task.
Estimated work has not been presented to team in advance
Team is often asked to give an estimation ad hoc. The issue with this is that team does not have enough time to understand properly requirements so the estimation is less valued. Preparing list of work and giving it to a team in advance can help reducing misunderstanding during official estimation process.
Inappropriate story's description
Story can be sketchy or too detailed. To address this issue, one person (few people) should check the story's details before estimation process and decide if it is written in understandable form (review can be done with regard to the story clarification, acceptance tests). If there are any issues around this you should escalate them to project leader (or customer).
Team doesn't base on previous experience
Your estimation can be more precise if you learn from your experience. You can do simple exercise to practice this skill: choose a story for tracking at the beginning of the iteration and compare estimated hours work with the actual time spent after finishing it.
Room, where estimation/planning will take place, is not ready
It is team leader duty to make sure that the room is booked in advance and all team members are aware of time and date. So let's make planning visible to your team – you can set up online calendar, send the email's reminder. The good idea is to check the all facilities are available (i.e. flipchart, projector, computer, access to network).
Estimation is made only by one/few person from the team
It is whole team who is responsible for delivering given functionality, so all (or almost all) members should give their inputs on story estimation. They should agree together on estimation's result. Of course, there are some situation that only one person is an expert in given domain, however in such case others opinion is appreciated as well as they can have different views.
Estimation is made by customer (product owner)
It is a team who does a commitment, not a product owner. Some negotiation between customer and team can take place there, but the final estimation should be done by team.
Estimation is made by team leader
Team leader should act as facilitator during estimation process. He should help a team to provide an accurate estimations together with protecting customer's interest. However, he is not allowed to decide how many hours are required to finish given task.
Estimated work has not been presented to team in advance
Team is often asked to give an estimation ad hoc. The issue with this is that team does not have enough time to understand properly requirements so the estimation is less valued. Preparing list of work and giving it to a team in advance can help reducing misunderstanding during official estimation process.
Inappropriate story's description
Story can be sketchy or too detailed. To address this issue, one person (few people) should check the story's details before estimation process and decide if it is written in understandable form (review can be done with regard to the story clarification, acceptance tests). If there are any issues around this you should escalate them to project leader (or customer).
Team doesn't base on previous experience
Your estimation can be more precise if you learn from your experience. You can do simple exercise to practice this skill: choose a story for tracking at the beginning of the iteration and compare estimated hours work with the actual time spent after finishing it.
Room, where estimation/planning will take place, is not ready
It is team leader duty to make sure that the room is booked in advance and all team members are aware of time and date. So let's make planning visible to your team – you can set up online calendar, send the email's reminder. The good idea is to check the all facilities are available (i.e. flipchart, projector, computer, access to network).
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estimation
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