Estimation
What is Velocity and Why Does it Matter? Velocity refers to the amount of work a development team can complete during a sprint, measured in story points per sprint. Tracking velocity over time provides insight into the team’s capacity for taking on new work. A downward velocity trend often indicates emerging problems that hinder productivity,…
Defining Relative Effort The concept of relative effort provides a framework for comparatively estimating the work required to complete tasks in software development. Unlike absolute effort measures, relative effort scoring aims to gauge the difficulty of a user story or feature in relation to other items being worked on. Using a relative scoring system allows…
Why Accurately Estimating Bugs Matters Accurate bug estimation enables development teams to plan and schedule work more effectively. Realistic bug estimates help set achievable sprint goals and ship high-quality software. Common challenges like unpredictable bugs, testing gaps, and lack of data can lead to underestimates. This hurts velocity tracking over sprints. Strategies like leveraging historical…
Defining Work Tracking Metrics Two key metrics for tracking workload progress in software projects are Remaining Work and Completed Work. Remaining Work refers to the total effort left to reach project completion. This includes all outstanding items across features, components, and other work units that the team still needs to implement before delivering the software….
Defining Technical Debt and Its Effects Technical debt refers to the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy software solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer. It is called “debt” because it incurs interest payments in the form of extra effort required later on to maintain suboptimal…
Defining the Problem Space The definition of clear and accurate software requirements is a pivotal first step in improving estimate accuracy for software development projects. However, requirements often change during development due to the natural volatility inherent in complex software projects. Understanding the sources of changing requirements and their potential impacts is key to defining…
What is Planning Poker? Planning poker is a consensus-based technique for estimating user stories in agile software development. It involves a moderator, customers, and developers estimating story points or effort values for stories through discussion and multiple voting rounds using a deck of cards with values representing estimates. Planning poker originated at Neoteric in the…
The Perils of Overconfidence Software developers often struggle with creating accurate estimates for project duration and effort. Estimation bias leading to overconfidence is a major contributor to poor estimates. Developers may anchor on initial assessments, fail to account for unfamiliar tasks, or have cognitive biases causing them to focus on best-case scenarios. The consequences of…
Understanding Unpredictability in Agile Projects Agile software development embraces change and uncertainty as inherent aspects of building complex systems. Unlike traditional waterfall projects with rigid scopes and plans, agile teams operate in short iterations and continuously adapt based on new learnings and shifting priorities. While agility confers advantages in fluid environments, quantifying the implications of…
What is Technical Debt? Technical debt refers to the implied cost of additional work caused by choosing an easy solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer. In other words, technical debt is a concept in programming that reflects the extra development work that arises when code that is easy to…