XP iterations, estimating and executing (an add-on) – level 200
This is a response to Sam Gentile’s post: Iteration
XV and IterationXVI – The One Week Iterations.
My team does 2 week iterations, and I think that timeframe works well. It’s just enough time to bite off a measurable amount of work while minimizing the percentage of overhead that iteration planning brings.
Our boss keeps an Excel spreadsheet with our burndown list for the purpose of keeping upper management up-to-date, but the team goes off of the whiteboard. The whiteboard is the master list and can be updated at any time.
6 months ago, iteration planning took all day to do because we were unorganized, and we got too much into analysis (off track). Now, our iteration plannings are much more focused. If we have unanswered questions, we throw an analysis spike on the storyboard. This keeps our planning meeting on target. Now we have it down to about 2 hours.
We estimate in points first to cap the work for an iteration. Then we break down the stories into tasks and estimate in ideal hours. Our minimum for a task is 2 hours, since nothing EVER takes just “5 minutes”.
Last iteration, we got half-way through and were 3 days behind. We had grossly underestimated. It worked out, though because we caught up with some tasks that were grossly overestimated. 🙂 We’re still getting better.
Thanks, this is great stuff. I am really looking forward to seeing you down in Austin to discuss this stuff in detail!
Estimating is always hard. I can say that my estimation skills since I started using stories, story points and small digestable tasks have gotten much better. My groups in the past have doing very close to 100% normal scrum – 1 month iterations, daily meetings, etc. That being said – the group I am with now – the shortest possible iterations – more like ~1-2 weeks seem better. Time boxing is key/ hard. My point is that I think that there is no globally ideal iteration length. It depends (IMHO) on the team and the organization that you are working in.
-Chris