D5-2-LC

Q40: Name 5 characteristics of a release plan...

1. A release plan indicates how the team intends to achieve the product vision within the project objectives and constraints identified in the project charter 2. Release plans convey critical information related to the product being developed 3. It helps the product owner and the team to decide the time required to create or develop a product 4. It conveys expectations to stakeholders 5. It serves as a guidepost on progress to complete each sprint and iteration

Q21: What is important about Value Points? (4A)

1. Agile emphasizes delivering value and outcomes early and often 2. Value points show the relative business value of a story 3. The same relative sizing techniques are applied to the values of stories to get insights into the overall value delivery 4. Value points bring real power to measurements

Q22: What is important about Ideal Days? (4A)

1. An Ideal Days estimate answers the question: How long would it take to implement a story? 2. Ideal Days assume that: - Only one story is being worked on - There are no interruptions - Everything needed is available 3. The Ideal Days estimate is converted to actual days required after accounting for interruptions that typically occur. The estimate can be increased by some percentage, for example 50% In Extreme Programming (XP), ideal days are called perfect engineering days (PEDs) 4. An Ideal Days estimate must be converted to actual days as there can be distractions such as, Training, Task Switching, Dependencies, Idle or Break Time, Blocking Issues, Email, Interviewing, Meeting, Phone Calls, Management Reviews

Q26: What is the 6-step process used in Planning Poker? Planning Poker is a relative estimating technique where the entire team collaboratively estimates the effort involved in each user story The following steps are performed during a Planning Poker session:

1. Each member of the team receives a deck of numbered cards with 1, 2, 3, 5, 13, and 18. This can be extended as required. 2. The Product Owner reads each story card and answers the team's questions, if any 3. Each team member assesses the effort for the story and selects a story point card based on relative seizing 4. When requested by the scrum master, everyone holds up the numbered card with their estimation at the same time 5. If there are outliers, the team members explain why they made the high or low estimates 6. After a discussion, the team members re-estimate until a consensus is reached

Q37: What are the 4 Characteristics of "Determining Project Size" in Agile?

1. In Agile, requirements are expressed in smaller units called stories 2. Requirements are evolving and not expressed in much detail 3. Agile believes in lightweight methods even for estimation, giving just enough predictability to develop plans 4. Both lines of code and function points require much more rigorous analysis

Q28: What is important about the Affinity Estimation method? (4A)

1. It is used by teams to estimate (in story points) a large number of user stories 2. It is quick and easy 3. The decision-making process is transparent and visible 4. It creates a positive experience, rather than being a confrontational exercise

Q23: Story Points vs. Ideal Days?

1. Story Points - Story Points help drive cross-functional behavior - Story Points estimates do not decay with time - They are a pure measure of size - It is faster as human minds handle relative measures better than absolute values - Story Points cannot be compared across teams 2. Ideal Days - Ideal Days may differ between members of even the same team - They are easier to explain outside the team as story points are more abstract - They are easier to estimate but take longer - Ideal Days can compel companies to confront time wasting activities

Q25: What are the 6 steps taken in the Wideband Delphi Technique?

1. Team Selection - Choose the group of experts responsible for the estimation 2. Kick-Off Meeting - Schedule a kick-off meeting to explain the process, provide requirements, and answer questions 3. Estimation Preparation - Each group individually generates estimates for the tasks to complete the project 4. Estimation Review - Conduct an estimation review session where eache stimate is anonymously reviewed and compared 5. Create an Average Estimate - After comparison, develop an average to act as the baseline estimate for the project 6. Re-estimate - If there is a wide range of estimates, re-estimate the effort by reviewing requirements and assumptions and repeat the process

Q24: What is important about the Wideband Delphi Technique? (4A)

1. The Wideband Delphi technique is used to generate an accurate estimate of project size and effort. 2. Each respondant group provides its estimates anonymously and they are compared to one another. 3. If the estimates vary widely, another iteration is conducted 4. The drawback is that this approach requires more effort and coordination to develop the estimate than a conventional estimation technique

Q31: What are the 9 Key Takeaways of Adaptive Planning Part 1?

1. The multiple levels of planning in agile projects are represented using a planning onion 2. In rolling wave planning or the progressive elaboration method, the plan evolves as the project progresses 3. Timeboxing is setting a fixed limit to activities 4. Estimation is a forecast of costs, schedule, effort, or skills required to deliver the intended product 5. Story Points is a unitless measure for expressing the overall size of a user story and the effort it requires 6. An Ideal Days estimate assumes that only one task is being worked on without interruptions and that everything needed is available 7. The Wideband Delphi technique is used to generate an accurate estimate of project size and effort 8. Plannning Poker is a variant of the Wideband Delphi technique where the entire team collaboratively estimates the effort involved in each user story 9. Affinity Estimation is a technique used by teams to estimate (in story points) a large number of user stories

Q38: How is the Project Size determined in Agile? (3A)

1. The project size is determined by adding the story points of user stories in the product backlog 2. New requirements are added to the product backlog on a continuous basis 3. The size of the project may change during the project life cycle

Q39: During the initial phases of a project, we have a general idea of the length of the project which we can use to determine ... ? (3A)

1. The size of the team and the number of teams 2. The duration of the sprints and number of sprints in a release 3. A Target "Go Live"

Q34 (Quiz #3) : In ideal day estimation, the term ideal day means: A. A day without any interruptions, distractions, and having all dependencies addressed B. A day where the maximum number of user stories are completed C. A day where no defects or blockers are recorded within an iteration D. A day the team shows up to work at the same time

A. An ideal day is a day without any interruptions or distractions. In an ideal day, all tools and information needed to complete a task are accessible.

Q33 (Quiz #2) : Project A has 1000 story points and Project B has 600. How much larger is Project A than Project B? A. 40% larger B. You cannot compare the story points of two different projects C. 66% larger D. 400 Storypoints

B. As story points are relative measures that are specific to one project, they cannot be compared with stories from another project.

Q35 (Quiz #4) : Which of the following is true? A. Story points differ between team members B. Story point estimates do not decay (verfallen) C. Story points are not a pure measure of size D. Story point estimation takes more time

B. Story point estimates do not decay as they are a pure measure of size. The ratios of story points are more likely to remain stable as compared to absolute values of estimates.

Q32 (Quiz #1) : In order to provide greater predictability to customers, a team decided to timebox its releases in addition to iterations. Which of the following is NOT a benefit that might result from timeboxing? A. Focus B. Realization of time spent C. Increased productivity D. Guaranteeing that deliverables occur within the specified timeframe

D. In timeboxing, deliverables that cannot be completed are deferred to the next timeboxed period. There is no guarantee that the deliverables will be delivered in the specified time frame.

Q36: Determining Project Size Determining the size of a project is important to determine its expected completion date and resourcing. What are the differences between Traditional and Agile Project Management?

In traditional (predictive) projects, common size measurements include - Lines of code - Function points In Agile, estimates are often expressed in - Ideal Days - Story Points

Q29: What is Step #1 taken in the Affinity Estimation Process?

Step 1: Relative Sizing - The Product Owner provides the product backlog - All stories are arranged horizontally on a wall - Team members size each item relative to other items on the wall considering the effort involved in implementation - Since it is just sorting, it is done relatively quickly, usually in a matter of minutes

Q30: What is Step #2 taken in the Affinity Estimation Process?

Step 2: Place items into Relative Sizing Buckets - In this step, the team adds buckets to group the stories into similar categories Categories could be T-Shirt sizes or the Fibonacci Series 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13

Q27: Planning Poker - Example: The Product Owner reads a user story and four team members provide their estimates using the Planning Poker Cards A sample user story is "As an insurance agent, I want to create a quote that I can share with the customers"

The team settled on 5 after two iterations