XP Day 2006 - Are we nearly there yet?
Are we nearly there yet?
This started with the presenter giving his experiences with tracking on agile projects and then became an open discussion with those present sharing their thoughts and experiences.
A couple of points that struck me:
- you can track done story points on a graph, if the graph flatlines for a few days it maybe an indication that the stories are too big - the team I’m in have recently (prior to XP Day) started tracking done story points in addition to tracking remaining estimated hours, I was dubious about what we would get from this but it’ll now be interesting to see what we get
- mark cards as done and not done (or a finer resolution, under development, ready for test, tested etc), e.g. using little coloured stickers, but don’t overwrite or replace one mark with another. If you see cards appearing with the same mark on them multiple times indicating they are bouncing back and forwards between states, e.g. not done and done, it’s a good indication there’s a problem somewhere.
One thing that did strike me was how comfortable everyone was in the room with doing different things at different times and in different situations - more than once someone started with “sometimes I’ve …” and the inexact nature of plans. I know I shouldn’t be surprised by this - responding to change over following a plan, continuous feedback and adjustment are all part of Agile - but it was reassuring to see, working in a company that’s trying to become Agile but with a long way to go where fixed scope and timescales still predominate where most still believe in the infallibility of ‘the plan’.