#NoEstimates – simplicity first
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In the team we use a hand sign (1=S, 2=M, 3=L) as a first indication, whether there is a different understanding off the topic.
Having the decision that a story is of an appropriate size is enough. We don’t use the sizing information any longer.
Use cycle time and a scatterplot diagram for visualizing your story completion statistics. You can spot outliers, discuss about possible reasons and ways to change your process. Using these metrics I can see what date range to expect for a story. (stay tuned with my next blog post describing my insight about core agile metrics for predictability).
For release planning you need to have an overall rough “estimation”. If you have epics in your backlog just ask roughly how many stories that epic will consist of. This way you can use the number of stories and your velocity for release planning too.
We just applied the counting of stories in our user story map too. Epics in the story map are marked with the number of stories (later on epics are split). This way you can have a fast overview and check when a release will be done.
This way you very likely have a buy in and people are willing to try it out.
Just today I joined a great Meetup where we discussed about #NoEstimates
References
- The great book on #NoEstimates by Vasco Duarte
- Lean from the trenches by Henrik Kniberg (or my summary)
- The No Estimates Principle by Vasco Duarte (looking forward for his great book about #NoEstimates coming soon)
- #NoEstimates on Twitter
- The waste of scaling
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