AGILE IN ACTION

Are We Nearly There Yet? looked at some of the reasons why tracking is often not done particularly well. Ivan Moore covered the important concepts to which he added some of his own experiences and observations. For example, what you need to complete for a user story to be really done ; the pros and cons of story points versus ideal time versus real time; using different estimation units for release (relative magnitude) and iteration planning (time-based); why velocity is the total estimates of the done user stories rather than the sum of the actuals.

I was expecting a more advanced session, in particular I was hoping to discover some new information radiators for tracking, but the session covered only the basic tracking techniques and burn charts . I think beginners would find it an informative session so perhaps it should’ve been in the ‘Introduction to Agile’ track rather than the ‘Peopleware’ track.

The subject itself is very important and lots of people clearly thought that. There were too many attending this session for the room allocated. It was a squeeze. I would like to see an extended session that includes some exercises to allow people to experience estimating using different units, and tracking actuals rather than original estimates and the impact that has on velocity. I’d also like to participate in a brainstorm to invent some new tracking information radiators.

I came out of the session with one useful tip. I usually record obstacles on index cards placed on an ‘Obstacles’ wall. But I liked Ivan ’s tip about user stories that are blocked. We’re experiencing problems with dependencies on other teams who are not agile. Every time a user story gets blocked by another team we now stick a pink index card over the story card saying ‘BLOCKED’ in big letters. This makes it very obvious to our product owner and stakeholders just how difficult it can be for us and how we’re slowed down by these dependencies.