[dba-VB] [AccessD] SCRUM: Northwind .NET ProductBackLogPlanningGame...

Mark,

I hadn't looked into the nature of your role.
Thanks for asking these weighty questions, the more the better.

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Michael R Mattys
MapPoint and Database Dev
www.mattysconsulting.com
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Breen" <marklbreen at gmail.com>
To: "Salakhetdinov Shamil" <mcp2004 at mail.ru>; "Discussion concerning Visual 
Basic and related programming issues." <dba-vb at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2009 5:41 AM
Subject: Re: [dba-VB] [AccessD] SCRUM: Northwind .NET 
ProductBackLogPlanningGame...


> 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