- If you are in an Agile team
and especially if you're doing Scrum,
chances are you're in the habit of estimating.
And estimating has much to commend it.
But it does have a nasty side effect.
Borderline evil.
(woman screaming)
And it's hiding (lightning striking)
in plain sight.
(text whooshing) (text buzzing)
Welcome to Development That Pays.
My name is Gary Straughan,
and these, as I'm sure you know,
are Planning Poker cards.
I was first introduced to them way back in 2012
when I joined an Agile team.
And because it was my very first Agile experience,
there were all kinds of things going on
that were new and different for me.
But I think those Estimating sessions,
well, they stood out to me
for a couple of reasons.
First of all, as a developer,
I certainly wasn't used to spending four hours,
sometimes five or six hours in a single meeting.
And I guess the other reason
was because well, the estimates we produced
were all over the place.
We'd have two pointers that ended up taking an entire sprint
to complete, and we'd have 20 pointers
that'd end up being fixed in five minutes
with a quick configuration change.
It seemed that decent estimates
were the exception, rather than the rule.
So it didn't take me long
to draw my first conclusion.
That estimating was a waste of time.
I was with that team for the best part of two years,
and over time, I have to say,
the estimates improved not one bit.
But what did improve was my appreciation of the process.
You might say that estimating went up
(record scratching) in my estimation.
(twinkling music)
The estimates might have been all over the place
but the discussion in those estimating sessions was good,
excellent actually, so I was forced
to draw a new conclusion.
That estimates are rubbish
but the process of estimating is valuable.
And it seems that you agree,
with the second part anyway.
Here's what some of you said in a survey
that I ran a couple of weeks ago.
The act of estimation often opens the floor
to discussion that might otherwise not have happened
in a group setting or at all.
(page whooshing)
I see it as a tool to discuss,
to ensure that everyone is aligned
on the complexity and risks of a story.
(page whooshing)
In retrospect, estimating has almost always
been a waste of time.
Talking about the work while estimating
was the real value.
So far, so not evil.
For the longest time,
I was at peace with estimating.
I'd enjoy the estimating discussion
and I'd smile quietly to myself
as a pretty much random Story Point number
was typed in to Jira.
But I'm not smiling anymore.
Much like Pandora's box,
the trouble starts when those estimates leak out
into the world.
That's when things start to turn
(thunder rumbling) rotten.
I got my first glimpse of it towards the end of 2012
when my Scrum master stopped by my desk
to ask about a particular ticket.
I said that it was going pretty well,
and with a bit of luck,
I'd get into QA later that afternoon,
to which he replied,
"Oh, I thought you'd be finished by now.
Didn't you say it was just a two pointer?"
I confess (thunder rumbling)
that I found that a little more than mildly irritating.
A few weeks later,
almost the same thing happened
but this time, it was someone from the management
who was asking a question.
(gauge hissing)
Furious doesn't quite cover how I felt about it that time.
And I had to wonder what strange alchemy is this
where an estimate is transmuted into a commitment?
And it seems I'm not the only one
to have experienced this.
The survey again.
The estimate is sometimes treated as a promise.
Then disappointment follows when it is not met.
(page whooshing)
It's great to have an idea of the size of the work,
but the estimate is held as the word of God.
Then problems arise when reality is different
than the estimate.
(page whooshing)
It is abused by management to punish teams
when they guess wrong.
(page whooshing)
It, the estimate, is never accurate
and it's used as a noose by business folk
Once again, I'm forced to draw a new conclusion.
Estimates are not rubbish.
Estimates are toxic.
(woman screaming)
Evil even. (thunder rumbling)
Which has led me to look
at whether we can do without them all together,
and that's a subject we are going to be revisiting.
But what made me hesitate,
take things a step at a time
is that estimating conversation.
I think there's a baby and bath water danger here
that we throw the evil, and the value goes with it.
So about three years ago,
I started looking for an alternative
to the estimating conversation.
And I think I've found it.
I'll tell you all about it in the very next episode,