97
votes
Accepted
What is the weighting difference between Epic/Story/Task
In Scrum here is the rough breakdown:
Epic - something so big it probably won't fit into a sprint, is not clearly understood in terms of customer requirements and should be broken down into stories. ...
- 3,932
53
votes
What is the weighting difference between Epic/Story/Task
Epic
An epic is like a super-story. When a story is too big to fit comfortably in a sprint and/or contains a lot of unknowns then it is usually better suited to be an epic. Epics are fine on the ...
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53
votes
Accepted
Task estimation for PMs who are not developers
If at all possible, they don't.
They ask developers to estimate it.
Estimates should always be made by the people who will perform the work being estimated. If this is not done, then you run the ...
- 14.8k
19
votes
Accepted
Should a Scrum team formally track daily commitments?
Coordination/Collaboration, Not Formal Task-Tracking
While the Scrum Guide used to refer to the stand-up as a commitment meeting, it currently says:
The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute time-boxed event ...
- 49.8k
16
votes
What is the weighting difference between Epic/Story/Task
In general there are no rules but what you make. Your Product Owner would define what this means to them, then document and share it.
If you look as some of the scaling frameworks available there is ...
11
votes
Task estimation for PMs who are not developers
Have Task Performers Provide Estimates
In agile frameworks (and even in sensible non-agile frameworks), project managers should never estimate work items themselves. Instead, the people who will ...
- 49.8k
10
votes
Accepted
What are the benefits of queuing tasks as opposed to assigning them?
I will assume that the "push" approach is not only direct, but also immediate.
(Like when someone comes up to you and says "hey, Joe, can we roll this later today?").
The "...
- 267
9
votes
How to split a User Story that spans multiple sprints?
Use INVEST for Story Definition and Sizing
You are struggling with decomposing your work because your stories don't follow the INVEST mnemonic. In particular, the tasks you've listed aren't testable. ...
- 49.8k
9
votes
Accepted
Should we allocate separate hourly estimates for test tasks in addition to the development tasks
When you have dedicated testers it can appear to make sense to have a seperate testing task for them. But when you think about it, testing is really a team activity.
For example, a tester may need to ...
- 19.4k
9
votes
Accepted
Who consumes estimates?
Estimates are a tool that supports planning. Anyone that needs to make decisions and build plans about the future can use estimates as a tool to make predictions and figure stuff out (without knowing ...
- 14.9k
8
votes
How to manage very small, easy tasks in Agile?
TL;DR
Even when the change is apparently minor, it can have ramifications. The "one-minute fix" to some CSS class might impact the user interface (UI) on some other page the developer isn't thinking ...
- 49.8k
8
votes
Should a Scrum team formally track daily commitments?
Tracking the daily commitments each team member sounds like micro-management at its best.
The exception would be for a very short project, or for a tiger-team trying to solve an emergency.
When you ...
- 4,552
8
votes
Task estimation for PMs who are not developers
It is very rare that this is possible. But it can happen, so let's look at it:
Any estimate is based off of statistical evidence from past experiences doing similar work. If the work we are doing is ...
- 16.9k
8
votes
Is tracking billable time for Scrum ceremonies in JIRA an anti-pattern?
The direct answer to your question is that how you bill your time to the client is not addressed in Scrum. Therefor there is no billing model that is expressly anti-scrum. If adding a place on the ...
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7
votes
How to factor in story points/tasks for non sprint related items?
The first answer is exactly what you would expect on a PM site and is wrong, for the very reason it gives as being right:
"In essence, you are getting hung up on the idea that backlog items or user ...
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7
votes
How to manage very small, easy tasks in Agile?
Stuff like that should be in the working agreement of the team. There is no right answer on how to handle the situation but there are pros/cons of creating the story/defect and/or underlying task.
...
- 3,932
7
votes
Technical user stories or development related tasks
Creating user stories is to get the conversation going and to give the team context to understand the problem at hand to create the correct solution. Also it forces the writer to think about the value ...
- 5,533
7
votes
How should a non-technical person define tasks for technicians?
Stories should always be defined in business terms. Why does there need to be web integration? Who is it for? What exactly does it need to accomplish?
If it is not directly-related to a business ...
- 14.8k
7
votes
Scrum - What and when is the best process to task a user story card in this environment
I am assigned to an Epic expected to take 3 developers for 6 weeks.
There are so very many things wrong with that statement, from a Scrum perspective. I'll go through them in order.
I am assigned ...
- 14.8k
7
votes
Is tracking billable time for Scrum ceremonies in JIRA an anti-pattern?
Scrum works best if you have good product ownership, fixed-length iterations and a stable team. If the backlog is determined by the client and the team is stable then (barring leave and unexpected ...
- 6,206
7
votes
How should large non-reducable tasks be handled in Scrum?
I'm not convinced that what you describe fits the notion of "large, non-reducible tasks". So far, I'm also not convinced that any piece of work is large or can't be reduced to something that ...
- 18.9k
6
votes
What is the weighting difference between Epic/Story/Task
Epics – Large projects that entail many people over a long time.
Stories – Smaller projects within an Epic that must be completed before the Epic can be considered ‘Done’.
Tasks – The day-to-day ...
6
votes
Should a Scrum team formally track daily commitments?
From the process point of view there is nothing wrong with it, because this is the closest thing you have for tracking. However, it may harm the team members on the personal level, and can easily lead ...
- 11.9k
6
votes
Accepted
How should a non-technical person define tasks for technicians?
TL;DR
You should not be defining tasks for technical people. Instead, you should describe a value proposition and some testable acceptance criteria, and then turn your technical experts loose to find ...
- 49.8k
6
votes
How to visualize and manage task dependencies?
TL;DR
Respect the time box, and do "just-in-time planning." Don't do so much up-front decomposition, and rely instead on iterative delivery to provide you with an emergent design.
Analysis
From an ...
- 49.8k
6
votes
How to deal with a team that fails to complete a task?
There is a not a single answer to this questions. Its imperative to understand how a team should perform so that you can spot dysfunction and respond appropriately. You need to understand the ...
- 171
6
votes
User Story breakdown - Technical Task + User Feature
Sprint Backlog Tasks Aren't Inherently User Stories
You're conflating user stories and tasks. Product Backlog Items often start as user stories on the Product Backlog, but Scrum doesn't mandate the ...
- 49.8k
6
votes
Does such physical-whiteboard-per-team management process exist in the literature?
Looks like something custom, possibly borrowed from, or resembling Kanban.
Kanban has two main principles:
visualize work
limit work in progress
Anything else falls into how you want to organize ...
- 14.9k
5
votes
Accepted
How should we deal with interdependent tasks in Scrum?
I think the question you're asking points more to a problem with how you split your stories/tasks/work items/whatever, and how they're written. Rather than trying to solve the symptoms of this issue, ...
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5
votes
Accepted
What level of detail should I include in epics?
To me an Epic is a large User Story, every time a requirement comes to our team and it seems very large (e.g. > 13SP), we consider calling it an Epic instead of a Story. A good metric is: Does it ...
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