NoEstimates

If you assigned 1 story point to every story, how much slicing would you do before you were confident you could actually complete each story in a day or so? Congratulations! You just discovered #NoEstimates. Stop trying to fit the estimate to the story. Start slicing the stories.

@erichbuhler While the neuroscience behind estimation is interesting, the cognitive and social benefits aren't exclusive to traditional practices. #NoEstimates achieves the same benefits without the antipatterns of traditional estimation.

The concept of #NoEstimates has been around for a while, but do you know the neuroscience behind estimation? Find out more inside: bit.ly/3WPkvDA #enterpriseagility #businessagility #EAWC #NoEstimates

It's a well know fact that meteorology (science of weather) can scarcely forecast more than 5 days of weather ahead. Yet, software projects (which are also affected by the weather!) pretend they can plan in detail several months ahead. #noestimates

@davefarley77 Scheduling and budgeting is a management problem, not a development problem.

What's something you've realised about your work recently that you should've known a long time ago? 🤨

"It's hard to predict what this dice will roll." "Well, then, you need to get better at predicting." Conventional wisdom about software development processes - that unpredictable work needs better estimates, not a more predictable way of working.

@carlvellotti Stop trying to guess how big a story is. Estimate all stories as 1 point. If the team isn't 100% confident that it's 1 point, split it. Then prioritize stories by value each iteration. If a story took longer than expected discuss as a team to understand why.

Product managers, a dilemma: Your team consistently takes 1–3 weeks longer to ship features than estimated. Stakeholders are frustrated, beginning to believe your team has "slow velocity." What do you do?

@jeffmignon @allenholub Those weren't agile teams.

@allenholub I have rarely seen an agile team collaborating with the end customer. And I have seen quite a lot of them.

I really want to hoist this comment to the top level. Agile is based on trust. Any org that assumes that people will be lazy and not interested in moving the business forward is not an agile one. Agile teams will not do things that nobody cares about.

@alexbunardzic Perverse incentives for the win.

@No_Estimates Managers get rewarded/promoted on delivery to the market, not on the ho-hum maintenance. Guess where their focus goes?

In my experience, the hardest part to sell to the bosses is our claims about the hypothetical need for future code changes. To them, code, once delivered, shouldn't have to ever be touched again. If I deliver a chair, why would I have to continue working on it? It's done.

@SteveTwips Then there's the engineering measure of efficiency: units of useful output per unit of input.

When someone tells me they want org to be more “efficient”, I have to ask: “Do you mean throughput, value, revenue, profit, WIP avg, WIP max, Lead Time, Cycle Time, resource, utilization, per shift, per day, local optima, global optimum… What efficiency are we talking about?”

Guaranteed it won't be anyone with "manager" or "director" in their title.

@davefarley77 Estimates

What is a really dangerous habit to build within your development workflow? 👇

A common criticism of #NoEstimates is that the term is misleading. It's not without merit. Given its emphasis on empirical evidence over expert opinion here are just a few terms that would be more accurate: Evidence-Based Estimation Performance-Driven Planning Adaptive Planning

@gregyoung Now I'm hungry. It's a conspiracy I tell ya.

Seems legit.

Any management that wants you to give them predictions so they can plan is living in la-la land. That's the opposite of agility. Slapping agile-ish words on waterfall does not give you agility.

@PeterKretzman @tastapod @allenholub @EzProgramming @markjgardner @jamesshore To be fair, your engagements with those movements are usually disingenuous and condescending.

@tastapod @allenholub @EzProgramming @markjgardner @jamesshore For sure: by far the most “psychologically UNsafe” thing I’ve experienced on the internet overall is when I’ve posted views that differ with the NoEstimates and NoProjects and NoBacklogs etc movements. Proponents of those movements name-call, block, curse at people.

I get kinda tired of Agile coaches always going to the kinder-gentler definition of "accountability" (provide an accounting of). Unfortunately, every manager I've ever met who uses the word means "heads will roll if you don't do the thing I just told you to do." 1/3

Why do ppl assume that estimates are necessary? I don't see the need for them myself. They're solid waterfall thinking—big upfront plans, milestones, months-long delivery cycles. Not much agility. It's deployable right now. It will be deployable w/ this new capability tomorrow.

@duarte_vasco A mother's wisdom applies... Don't make promises you can't keep.

Teams say “we got estimation wrong”, when they mean “we couldn't keep our promises”. Solving the first problem doesn't necessarily solve the second! Keeping promises “may” be affected by estimates, but it's affected A LOT MORE by decisions we make AFTER estimation! #NoEstimates

Why Effort Estimation Doesn't Work: A Comprehensive Review of Late and Over Budget Projects

@lukehohmann @stephanie_leue An estimate is not a commitment. Period.