82
votes
Accepted
Is Planning Poker Bad for Software Development Teams?
Is Planning Poker Bad for Software Development Teams?
This is the wrong question to ask. Planning poker is a tool. Asking if planning poker is bad for software development teams is like asking if a ...
- 15k
29
votes
Accepted
What are developers expected to do during testing in the latter half of each Sprint?
TL; DR
Your question embeds some false assumptions about the linear nature of testing within an agile process. A mature agile team with cross-functional skill sets treats development and testing as ...
- 50.1k
11
votes
Is Planning Poker Bad for Software Development Teams?
Planning Poker isn't the only way to estimate and lots of teams get on well with other methods. More experienced teams may find they can reach a consensus estimate via a quick conversation instead.
...
- 6,216
10
votes
Accepted
Agile team full of part time developers
Multitasking kills productivity. Task-switching costs can be deadly.
What I would suggest is to make Management aware of the costs and risks of having developers working on multiple projects ...
- 14.8k
9
votes
What is the term for actual delivery time will be varied by 4 times from estimation?
Cone of Uncertainty
Research in the software industry on the Cone of Uncertainty stated that in the beginning of the project life cycle (i.e. before gathering of requirements) estimates have in ...
- 11.1k
9
votes
Is Planning Poker Bad for Software Development Teams?
We estimate as a team and then take the average
Good grief, don't take the average! That's not how planning poker is played.
Here's how I teach my teams:
start with a brief discussion of the work ...
- 3,535
8
votes
What are developers expected to do during testing in the latter half of each Sprint?
They could be doing a number of things. What they should be doing depends on your organization's Scrum/XP maturity but here are some common items:
QA work - yes devs can QA, whether thats writing ...
- 3,932
6
votes
How can I handle objections about the percent of utilization of a non-technical PM?
I've been very successful as a program manager and now agile coach, in Silicon Valley, for over fifteen years based on a completely non-technical background. I've faced this argument many times in the ...
- 12.5k
6
votes
Accepted
What is the term for actual delivery time will be varied by 4 times from estimation?
It sounds like the Cone of Uncertainty. The idea is that at the beginning of a project or effort, there is enough uncertainty that estimates are generally in the range of being 4x over or 1/4 of the ...
- 19k
6
votes
Managing a junior project manager who is bored
TL;DR
If your employee truly is bored, and one or both of you think this is actually a problem that needs to be solved, ask her for solutions that suit the both of you. The path to professional self-...
- 50.1k
6
votes
What's wrong with a status pull?
TL;DR: Reporting status is not bad; wasting people's time to get information that should be readily available is bad.
In a team where collaboration and transparency are nurtured, the status of each ...
- 8,625
5
votes
What is the purpose of logging work on daily time sheets?
TL; DR
In general, logging is a symptom of a non-agile development process that proxies for a project manager's active engagement and situational awareness. It is also often a sign that the project ...
- 50.1k
5
votes
How can I handle objections about the percent of utilization of a non-technical PM?
TL; DR
You and the customer have both fallen prey to the "100% utilization fallacy." This puts the project at risk. Build more slack into your project management process, not less.
Analysis
[T]he ...
- 50.1k
5
votes
How can a small dev team track time successfully?
A tool won't save you. Discipline will. Other professionals, such as lawyers, do it all the time for decades, with accuracy, and without a fancy tool.
- 37.1k
5
votes
My team hates planning poker (and the length of planning in general), is there a more engaging and/or quicker way to plan a sprint?
This is a concern I've heard multiple times and the trouble with it is that if it takes a long time, it needs to take a long time. What I mean by that is that the goal of estimation is less about the ...
- 16.9k
4
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to prescribe PM time spent on key activities during a working day?
I think I understand where you're coming from. I transitioned more or less organically from developer to PM role a few years ago. The thing is that PM "work" doesn't look like the kind of "work" that ...
- 3,535
4
votes
Is imposing "impossible deadlines" a Management Technique?
This is a recipe for high turnover, since the team will implicitly know:
When you finish a project with an unrealistic deadline, your reward is another project with another unrealistic deadline. ...
- 278
4
votes
What are developers expected to do during testing in the latter half of each Sprint?
"Typically for a team of 3 to 4 developers, there would be 1 QA resource"
That's your problem there. There are three roles in Scrum, Product Owner, Scrum Master and Development Team Member. Your ...
- 1,255
4
votes
How can one Scrum Master do two retrospectives during SAFe PI Planning?
TL;DR
I'm not a huge fan of SAFe, so you may prefer an answer from someone who is. With that caveat out of the way, I believe the foundational error is that your ART Engineer is conflating the ...
- 50.1k
4
votes
My team hates planning poker (and the length of planning in general), is there a more engaging and/or quicker way to plan a sprint?
Different teams have different approaches to estimating.
Some teams I have worked with like to do all of their estimating in sprint planning and as a result it often takes several hours.
Other teams ...
- 19.5k
4
votes
JIRA - Story Points & Time Tracking
We see nothing happen for a week or more, then suddenly a massive percentage of the work is completed
Take a look at my related answer, here: https://pm.stackexchange.com/a/20367/25606.
Further, you ...
- 14.8k
4
votes
Accepted
What techniques do you use to establish scope in agile
If I understand your Question correctly, you're asking how best to approach agile development in a situation where there is a hard cap on time?
The obvious answer is to constrain the scope. And a ...
- 14.8k
4
votes
Accepted
Tracking hours for Managers/Scrum Master
Analysis
HR is going to use the breakdown. Mostly it would be an audit of the time spent and some insights into areas where people are spending time.
This is a known anti-pattern. If the team is ...
- 50.1k
4
votes
Product Owner in different time zone from scrum team
Well, one by-the-book answer is: don't.
The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute time-boxed event for the Development Team.
Your attendance is not required. And as long as you do your job in
Ensuring ...
- 8,471
4
votes
Is Planning Poker Bad for Software Development Teams?
It's no bad, and neither is stress, but since you're asking the question, it may be the source of a larger issue.
I've been on teams where I've liked planning poker and teams where I've loathed ...
- 143
4
votes
Accepted
Effect of front-loading tasks on project schedule
Normally, if you reprioritize or reschedule tasks to be started immediately, you need to interrupt and postpone current activities. This inevitably incurs overhead. Your client needs to understand ...
- 1,232
4
votes
Recording workers PCs and insight into their activity and effectiveness? How
This type of micromanagement will chill motivation. There are a lot of studies and insight into that with a bit of research. So while you may "find" an issue if you did this type of ...
- 37.1k
4
votes
What is the concept behind adding dummy activity in network diagrams?
Dummy activities may be needed to correctly represent the depndencies between activities
In the following figure, why do we need a dummy activity? Why can't we
just connect directly instead of ...
- 11.1k
3
votes
What are developers expected to do during testing in the latter half of each Sprint?
It sounds like you are not really practising scrum but 'timeboxed waterfall'. With this approach each sprint is it's own mini waterfall project, with dev up front and testing at the end. As you have ...
- 436
3
votes
Accepted
Ratio of learning time and working time at work in software development
As a project manager, you want your team not only finishes within tight deadlines, but also develop. This is in fact a reasonable need that managers in general should think about.
My first advice is, ...
- 527
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible