It's interesting to learn English with all of you. I leave here the list of words and expressions I've learned: crux, ebb, ripple effect, standpoint, geezer, exert, lead time, harp, rigmarole, downer, a silver lining, onus, forecast, swath, awry, horses for courses
I like what John said, people added too much layers in story points - it is just a technique. The benefit of story points is taking the resource planning part away from planning the work, by focusing less on exact time, it is a way to reset management's expectation yet still performs the function of planning. And it can be dead simple to apply, how hard is it to determine whether one is more/less complex than another?
I've consulted several Fortune 500 companies, and the exec team really doesn't know about Agile. That's for the dev team. They want, what they want, on the date they want it. I've had many execs tell me that they want the software completed by this date and I don't care whether it requires 8 or 18 hours a day of work. That's why you get big bonuses. In most cases, it gets delivered on time, not because of Agile, but because there are superhero developers on the team who generally bring it home.
I like that you bring up a failed estimation effort as a reason why you switched to Story Points. This is very often why people don't want to use Time: inability to make estimations. The thing is that replacing a time estimation with an arbitrary point system does not really change that. You will just continue doing guesstimates and never learn to do estimations.
Agreed! And no matter how much people try to deny a correlation between story points and time, story points really are, at the end of the day, just an abstraction of time. Stakeholders want to know when something will be done. And if they know the team got 8 story points completed in the last 2-week sprint, they will expect that same volume of work next sprint... As they should!
Simple solutions that everyone can easily understand and follow are best. I personally am perfectly fine with estimating a task/activity in person days and it works fine in our org.
"When will the leak flooding my house be repaired?" "I can't give you a time, but it's like 10 story points." Story points are super useful to a team, but are they useful for customers?
Story Points is nothing more than a way to avoid accountability because you are unable to do proper and realistic estimations. jimiwikman.se/articles/professional/development/how-to-make-realistic-estimates-when-working-with-software-development-r194/ In any situation where you have resource management and need cost analysis Story point is completely useless. Any company that work with KPI's or common data Story Points are not working. So the only place this works is if you have a single product with a single team because then you don't need accountability or actual timelines.
@@isaacfife1319 Then I would argue that you are translating the work in your head to time, or you have invented a new standard of measurement. There is no problem making proper estimates with story points, you just need to translate it to....time. Or else how would you be accurate (in estimating time to completion) or predictable (use known measurement of time in a way that is repeatable and predictable)?
Funny. Your attitude in your June article doesn't seem so derogatory and dismissive. medium.com/jwse-articles/why-story-points-are-mostly-useless-8b15b4a64e03
It's interesting to learn English with all of you. I leave here the list of words and expressions I've learned:
crux, ebb, ripple effect, standpoint, geezer, exert, lead time, harp, rigmarole, downer, a silver lining, onus, forecast, swath, awry, horses for courses
Agile is astrology and power trips for managers.
I like what John said, people added too much layers in story points - it is just a technique. The benefit of story points is taking the resource planning part away from planning the work, by focusing less on exact time, it is a way to reset management's expectation yet still performs the function of planning. And it can be dead simple to apply, how hard is it to determine whether one is more/less complex than another?
Thanks for this video Atlassian! I really enjoyed hearing from Andrea and Mike especially.
Was great to watch this chat. Like being back with my previous teams. Great stuff guys.
I've consulted several Fortune 500 companies, and the exec team really doesn't know about Agile. That's for the dev team. They want, what they want, on the date they want it. I've had many execs tell me that they want the software completed by this date and I don't care whether it requires 8 or 18 hours a day of work. That's why you get big bonuses. In most cases, it gets delivered on time, not because of Agile, but because there are superhero developers on the team who generally bring it home.
Great discussion - would love a visualisaton summary of this discussion (collecting my own thoughts watching this).
I like that you bring up a failed estimation effort as a reason why you switched to Story Points. This is very often why people don't want to use Time: inability to make estimations. The thing is that replacing a time estimation with an arbitrary point system does not really change that. You will just continue doing guesstimates and never learn to do estimations.
Agreed! And no matter how much people try to deny a correlation between story points and time, story points really are, at the end of the day, just an abstraction of time. Stakeholders want to know when something will be done. And if they know the team got 8 story points completed in the last 2-week sprint, they will expect that same volume of work next sprint... As they should!
@@mattchappel4992Should they really expect the same amount?
Simple solutions that everyone can easily understand and follow are best. I personally am perfectly fine with estimating a task/activity in person days and it works fine in our org.
I know it's kind of off topic but does anyone know a good place to stream newly released tv shows online?
@Bryan Kristian i use flixzone. You can find it on google :)
@Keaton Fletcher Yup, been watching on FlixZone for since march myself :D
@Keaton Fletcher Thanks, signed up and it seems like they got a lot of movies there :D Appreciate it !
@Bryan Kristian you are welcome :D
I like Mike insights
Great talk
Implementation details will surely help to avoid guesstimate pitfalls.
I couldn't imagine a plumber telling me that he couldn't offer me a usd amount. Instead he would charge me 10 story points.
I bet you can imagine a plumber saying the price has gone up.
"When will the leak flooding my house be repaired?"
"I can't give you a time, but it's like 10 story points."
Story points are super useful to a team, but are they useful for customers?
Story Points is nothing more than a way to avoid accountability because you are unable to do proper and realistic estimations.
jimiwikman.se/articles/professional/development/how-to-make-realistic-estimates-when-working-with-software-development-r194/
In any situation where you have resource management and need cost analysis Story point is completely useless. Any company that work with KPI's or common data Story Points are not working. So the only place this works is if you have a single product with a single team because then you don't need accountability or actual timelines.
I am a Program Manager and completely agree with your points.
@@kellydrozd8448 Glad you liked it :)
@@isaacfife1319 Then I would argue that you are translating the work in your head to time, or you have invented a new standard of measurement. There is no problem making proper estimates with story points, you just need to translate it to....time. Or else how would you be accurate (in estimating time to completion) or predictable (use known measurement of time in a way that is repeatable and predictable)?
@@jimiwikmanofficial By the way, I'm not saying you can't use hours. I'm just saying you can use story points and it works well for us.
Funny. Your attitude in your June article doesn't seem so derogatory and dismissive. medium.com/jwse-articles/why-story-points-are-mostly-useless-8b15b4a64e03
How do I yeet someone into space