/

...

Presentation

How we support Agile teams in building estimates

/

...

The context for Agile in Computaris

Rapid changes in telecom infrastructure: changes of technologies combined with an increased variety of network elements

Managing growing deployments

Complex systems that require an adaptive change management system

Integrating customer feedback early through demos and presentations, transparently and adapting to changing requirements

/

...

What did we accomplish?

> Successful delivery of complex products (1500+ MDs and 9+ people teams) through Agile methodologies, specifically where GUI is involved

> Meeting aggressive timelines, while producing higher-quality software more productively

/

...

How did we accomplish?

> Quality assurance prevention techniques:

• requirements validation

• requirements traceability

• code coverage automated tools

• code inspection

• simulators

• continuous integration

• automated regression suite

/

...

What did we need?

> To build from scratch accurate estimates

> To plan the schedule

/

...

Facts

> It’s not easy to estimate something that is being built for the first time

> We rarely built the same feature twice, so we had to use comparisons to potentially similar features or use expert judgement

> We estimated closer to reality as we got to the project end

> The velocity variated with 25-50%

> The classical parametric estimate did not work

> Once there is a new technology that people get in love with it, it is hard to stop them from work

> Sometimes it was easier to estimate relative size (T-shirts, complexity: Low/Medium/High)

/

...

Lessons learnt

> Setup effort is smaller if one developer builds a project structure and then bring the whole team on board

> Trainings for new technologies had be accounted for 50-100% of Sprint 0 time, and at least 25% for the next 3 Sprints

> Rework should be planned in case we use new technologies

> Plan for maintaining regression tests in each sprint or once in 2-3 Sprints

/

...

Lessons learnt

> In each sprint, account for bug fixing and re-testing bug fixes for at least 10-15% of dev time

> Have the QA start 1 Sprint behind Dev

> Spend time in estimating in advance only for items that the PO targets for the next 1 or 2 Sprints

/

...

Tip: Workload Pie Chart Report

/

...

How we refined our estimates

Questions:

> Have we done this before in our team?

> Have we done this before in the company?

> Is there anything free we can reuse?

> In how many ways can we do it?

> What is the best way to do it? Why?

> Can we study this and regroup tomorrow morning for Sprint Planning?

> At Sprint Planning, ask the Product Owner: what will we be working on in the next Sprint?

/

...

Tip – check remaining effort

/

...

How we refined our estimates

Questions upon tasks completion:

> Did we log the actual effort? How accurate is it?

> What could we have automated?

> How would we do it differently?

> If we knew what you know now, how long would it take us?

> Did we document what we did?

> Did we contribute to internal twiki/forums/community?

> Have we maintained the historical data regarding the effort?

/

...

Tips and tricks

> Understanding and managing risk attitude when making estimates

> Consider level of experience of the persons making the estimates, especially when these are different than the ones executing the tasks

/

...

In the end…we got there!

We’ve built a configuration audit solution which can:

> ensure consistent quality and continuity of processes by validating human manual operations

> save time with operation and maintenance flows

> fill in the gap between network planning and engineering departments

> prevent downtimes due to misconfiguration settings

> make better business decisions

/

...

In the end…we got there!

/

...

In the end…we got there!

/

...

The full picture

The full Computaris presentation on “How we support Agile teams in estimates” is available in video format here.

An article summarizing the main tips and tricks, and lessons learnt is available here.

/

...

/Thankyou!

/

[+40]21.204.5200

www.computaris.com