Session

As important as estimation is to setting customer/stakeholder expectations and ultimately to paying the bills, there is surprisingly little discussion about what makes for a sound estimation strategy.

There’s an assumption that estimation is something that good developers should be good at, with the unspoken the corollary that failure to meet estimates is somehow the mark of an amateur. Once burned, developers push back that they lack specification. Backlog refinement meetings are scheduled. Time is set aside for technical planning, with expectations set, but often the cycle is repeated, leading to the question, what is this estimation thing?

In this session we'll lay the groundwork by examining a theory of measurement, to try to get at what we mean when we say “estimation”.  Then we’ll compare direct estimation, indirect estimation and no estimation strategies, and develop the thinking behind the different approaches. 

• When does it take to make traditional time-against-task estimation effective?
• What problems are we trying to resolve with Indirect estimation strategies, such as Planning poker, Story points, Fibonacci spreads or the Cherry-pit Mustang thing?
• What is “no estimation”, really? How would that work?

Finally we’ll review the practice of estimation calibration, which can help people improve their “sense of size”: useful when applied to any estimation strategy.

We hope to leave you with a better understanding of the various approaches to estimation, and to understand what they’re trying to achieve, to give you greater confidence in the choices you make in this critical area of software development.