Reluctance to estimate Backlog Items
1. Smells
- Team refuses to play planning poker
- Individuals guessimating
2. Discussion
[ Describe the background concepts and/or context relating to these smells. ]
3. Causes
- R&D Project
- Fuzzy release dates
- Management actively discouraging estimation
4. Consequences
- Poor prioritisation (inaccurate cost data)
- Missed releases or substantial feature reduction
- Lack of estimate improvement
5. Prevention
[ How can we avoid this problem occurring in the first place? You may like to refer to a pattern to illustrate how things can work more satisfactorily. ]
6. Example Remedies
Remedy to open-ended schedule:
- (Re-)do release planning with whole team
- Make release burn-down visible to team
- Retrospective focus on the difference release targets and estimation is making
Remedy to address uncertainty:
- Focus estimation on an area in which there is the clearest need for it
- Use estimation to identify uncertainty
- Plan spikes for areas of uncertainty
- Retry estimation, review uncertainty
- Make commitments based on estimates
- Review how team met commitments
Credit: this is based on material from "Sharing More than Deodorant for Scrum Smells" by Rown Bunning.
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