Mark Breen
marklbreen at gmail.com
Fri Mar 20 04:41:31 CDT 2009
Hello Shamil, I have one or two questions on scrum techniques. In the estimates, the product owner has to make some judgement calls on which items to drop, and which items to include. Or let me phrase that better, the product owner has to prioritise his importance of the items, in the hope that he receives all, but if he does not, then he must decide which items to exclude. Background of question first My personal instinct, and the behavior of most people I know will be to seek some additional information from the 'supplier' as to why feature a takes one hour and feature b takes 5 hours. I would expect that most people would assume that this background information assists them in their decision process, as they are making it from a position of knowledge. Also, as a product owner in this case, I imagine that there is a certain element of risk / gambling on the product owners behalf, i.e. do I place this feature (a 5 hour estimate) at the top of the list, and guarantee its delivery, or do I drop it down the list, and guarantee five other (1 hour) features. My instinct at this point is that most people will desire a little background on the justifications for why one item is one hour and one item is five hours. Now the question to our ScrumMaster In this new world, is the above appropriate thinking on behalf of the product owner. Do I / should I re-program my brain to accept blindly the estimates and focus only on what is important as a delivered feature and NOT on why feature A takes five times the time to produce feature B. If I take this blind leap of faith, will I eventually produce more accurate views on what is important to my business? i.e. should the product owner keep their nose out of the programmers area and stick to being product owner. Question 2 In a larger project than this one, but even in this small project there are synergies, IOW, the work to produce the suppliers form, may be identical to the work to produce the categories form. Should the product owner know there there is some virtual grouping here? Or once again, should he keep his dirty nose out of these types of concepts. I think you answer will be yes, he should keep his nose out and leave that to the scrum team. Question 3 When are we ready for me to prioritise the list 2009/3/19 Salakhetdinov Shamil <mcp2004 at mail.ru> > Hi John, > > When we talked originally on this project it was planned to do it in one > month with every team member spending not more than one hour within a > working day, which totals to 20-22 hours per member per month - approx. 100 > hours for 5 team members. (Note: anybody can spend that five hours within > one day within a week if they have free time or split them within two days > etc. but it's important to have equal amount of total time spent every week > - important for planning/predictability etc. - to calculate team > velocity...) > > If we will not fit 100 hours max value some of the ProductBackLog items > will be left undone - then ProductOwner can decide shall there be a > follow-up or not - this is how SCRUM process handles ProductBackLog items > based on realistic approach/assumption/real life experience that if project > time frame was underestimated then there should be some ProductBackLog items > left undone: SCRUM team shouldn't work extra hours (for free) etc. to get > all the work done... > > Yes, that may sound idealistic on first glance but the more projects a team > completes the more precise their estimations become, and the more trust is > created between team + SCRUMMaster and ProductOwner + StakeHolders/Users - > the latter know/trust that SCRUM team does their best... > > Somehere in the middle when it will be more clear how well we perform (or > earlier or later) ProductOwner could rearrange ProductBackLog items > implementation sequence to have as much as possible and the most required > items done within given (left) time frame (and budget in real life case)... > > Maybe I'm too optimistic but I currently suppose we should make all the > forms/reports in less than 100 hours... > > Thank you. > > -- > Shamil > > -----Original Message----- > From: John W Colby <jwcolby at gmail.com> > To: Salakhetdinov Shamil <mcp2004 at mail.ru>, "Discussion concerning Visual > Basic and related programming issues." <dba-vb at databaseadvisors.com> > Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:05:00 -0400 > Subject: Re: [dba-VB] [AccessD] SCRUM: Northwind .NET Product > BackLogPlanningGame... > > > Is the max value a preconceived notion that we must fit? If the total > > value is higher than 100 hours then the process should be able to handle > > that. > > > > John W. Colby > > www.ColbyConsulting.com > > > > > > > > Salakhetdinov Shamil wrote: > > > Hi Mike, > > > > > > Do you mean that AVG value (corrected to fit SCRUM recommended numbers) > should be better made higher for all the positions? For some positions - > which ones? (If we will make estimation higher for all the positions then we > will not fit max value of 100 hours (20x5)). > > > > > > Thank you. > > > > > > -- > > > Shamil > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: "Mike Mattys" <mmattys at rochester.rr.com> > > > To: "Salakhetdinov Shamil" <mcp2004 at mail.ru>,"Discussion concerning > Visual Basic and related programming issues." <dba-vb at databaseadvisors.com > > > > > Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:56:52 -0400 > > > Subject: Re: [dba-VB][AccessD] SCRUM: Northwind .NET Product > BackLogPlanning Game... > > > > > > > > >> I've got it, thanks. > > >> I'll be most happy to submit a little higher estimate, > > >> if called upon to do so! > > >> > > >> - > > >> Michael R Mattys > > >> MapPoint and Database Dev > > >> www.mattysconsulting.com > > >> - > > >> > > >> ----- Original Message ----- > > >> From: "Salakhetdinov Shamil" <mcp2004 at mail.ru> > > >> To: "Discussion concerning Visual Basic and related programming > issues." > > >> <dba-vb at databaseadvisors.com> > > >> Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 3:36 PM > > >> Subject: Re: [dba-VB][AccessD] SCRUM: Northwind .NET Product > BackLogPlanning > > >> Game... > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >>> Hi SCRUM Team members, > > >>> > > >>> I have got estimations from Doug and I have made combined workbook > with > > >>> all estimatiions, which I have got published here on MS Live dba-VB: > > >>> > > >>> > https://cid-000971dc34dc18c0.groups.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.Documents/NorthWind.NET/ProductBackLog?uc=1&isFromRichUpload=1 > > >>> > > >>> Is it available for everybody? (please get MS Live ID if you still do > not > > >>> have it and make a request to join MS Live dba-VB) > > >>> > > >>> In the above workbook you can find that there is an AVG value of all > > >>> estimations and manually corrected AVG value to fit the SCRUM > evaluation > > >>> numbers set: 0, 1/2, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, ??? > > >>> > > >>> The total number of ideal hours we have now is 86, which fits our > original > > >>> plan of 20x5 = 100 hours. > > >>> Please check my arithmetics and correct if there are some mistakes. > > >>> > > >>> If everybody feels OK with that evaluation we can get it as DONE and > spend > > >>> rest of the time during this week to try to get source code control > > >>> up&running. > > >>> > > >>> If you feel not OK about some positions lets discuss them here - > please > > >>> post your considerations. > > >>> > > >>> Note: in real life product planing discussion/meetings it usually > takes > > >>> several rounds to come to a common set of evaluations but the total > number > > >>> of hours spent on this meeting should be within 4 hours. > > >>> > > >>> Please note also that (most of) the current evaluations (whatever > they > > >>> will finally be) will inevitably change during actual development... > > >>> > > >>> I have also put combined workbook temporarily here: > > >>> > > >>> http://smsconsulting.spb.ru/scrum/nwbl.zip > > >>> > > >>> Thank you. > > >>> > > >>> -- > > >>> Shamil > > >>> > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > dba-VB mailing list > > > dba-VB at databaseadvisors.com > > > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-vb > > > http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > dba-VB mailing list > dba-VB at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-vb > http://www.databaseadvisors.com > >