Estimation Jedi Tricks + Free estimation tool
Estimation frustration? We’ve got clues for your blues! Take this fresh load of tips and ideas to estimate like a diviner pro. We've even made a free tool for you!
Agile Matinée is a fortnightly dispatch curated by Panaxeo, one Agile topic at a time. We bribe five Agile enthusiasts with croissants and expect them to collect interesting and read-worthy content in return. Here’s one on Estimations.
1. Research’d - Drop the Anchor!
Wanna know a simple secret to estimating better? Shut up. Numbers, hints of expectations, budgets, or even utterly unrelated quantities spoken during an estimation workshop act as a significant psychological anchor on the team, skewing their estimates. That’s a powerful take-away from this beautifully named research paper we dug up for you.
2. Story points — An all-level quick guide
If we got a penny for each time we uttered “story points”... Yet, this neat primer was a good refresher that gave us one or two new nuanced perspectives. Accessible to all levels, this will become our go-to explanatory text for new colleagues, friends, and aunts at a Sunday matinee.
3. Beyond the Basics — 5 More Agile Estimation Techniques
Don't be a one-trick pony! There are more ways to estimate than just Planning Poker. PremierAgile did a good job compiling a quick run-down of 6 Agile estimation techniques and – more importantly – telling us puny mortals when to prefer which.
4. The (mountain) G.O.A.T. — Advanced Topics in Agile Planning
The only thing better than reading Mike Cohn is watching Mike Cohn. Tell your significant other you’re going to the gym, buy a cigar, and witness epiphany. It doesn’t get much better than this.
5. Moment of Clarity — Forecasting, not estimating
Sometimes, being surgical about our terms helps. We all (should) know that Agile is about maximizing value, not output. We’ve also been taught to gently smack a manager who judges our team’s performance using velocity.
Listen, we don't want to make any promises, but maybe, just maybe, if we all read the following post by Zuzi Sochova and adjusted our daily lexicon, we’d all live happily ever after in harmony. Maybe.
6. Casino Time! — Use data and forecast more accurately in 5 minutes (+ free tool by Panaxeo)
We’re all “data-driven” when we advertise ourselves. But then we head to the sprint planning, play some poker and call it a day. Stop.
There is a simple way of devising good, accurate forecasts grounded in actual evidence. We explain a good forecast and a method to achieve it from your own data. You know what? Let’s make it easy. Here’s a free Monte Carlo forecasting tool for you. Try it for your next planning.
And let us know how accurate it was. Be honest!
7. The Anti-climax — Click that report button in JIRA!
JIRA is the most hated, loved, and fragile poor thing that’s also not going anywhere anytime soon. Jira Agile’s got heaps of good stuff though. Ever tried clicking on the “Report” button? Well, it’s got a Cycle Time report! Being a core Kanban metric of flow, CT is a good assistive metric to consider in forecasting stable-flowing projects. So yeah, go check it out.
P.S.: If you are unfamiliar with flow metrics or Kanban+Scrum in general, read the Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams first to understand what you’re looking at.
That’s it; we’re off.
Hope you’ve basked enough in this Agile well of inspiration. Now go about your day and put this stuff into practice! Oh, and unless you want to miss our next digest, follow us on LinkedIn or share this post with your friends and frenemies!
Hasta la Agilista, baby!