SE 3800 Note 7 Planning, Impediments Ch. 3 Dr. Rob Hasker Dr. Brad Dennis SE 3800 Note 7 Planning, Impediments Ch. 3

Shortcut 7: Scrum Staging Keep the team together Easy in school, very difficult elsewhere Everyone else wants good people, too! DeMarco & Lister: 3 person-months lost for every new team hire The team which sits together works together Estimates are estimates “How long will it take to do this month-long task”? If want estimates to be perfect, go find a doghouse to build.

Shortcut 7: Scrum Staging Sustainable development 80 hour work weeks accomplish about the same as 50

Shortcut 8: Sprints & Planning Month-long sprints: minimal overhead, but low response Intense pressure to add PBIs Pre-sprint planning PO: all PBIs available w/ some acceptance criteria May even create initial set of test cases Ensure have explicit sprint goal Can have PBIs not in goal, goal specifies priority

Shortcut 8: Sprints & Planning What is the team capacity? # team members * 40 * weeks? What about planning, review, retro? Production support: just move out of sprint Textbook: 6 hrs/day per developer

Shortcut 8: Planning PO uses velocity to determine PBIs to consider Sizes already specified! Team considers each PBI in turn Estimate hours per task, refine PBI size Repeat until full capacity PO might not be present, but available for ?

Shortcut 8: Planning What’s a task? A small, testable slice of a PBI Limit to 8 hrs – probably 4 in SDL Each task performed by 1 developer only Or developer pair! Remember to include tasks for review prep That is, time to set up demo for review What to do w/ small amts of extra capacity? Just allow team to add next PBI w/ no intent to complete Preferable than digging down for small PBIs

Shortcut 8: Planning 7 P’s (British army adage): Keep track of sprint planning goals: Ensure all stakeholders know where the priorities are, what is going to be done Is this the real plan-driven development? Proper planning and preparation prevents piss-poor performance.

Shortcut 9: Impediments Definition: event that impedes any developer from working to anticipated sprint capacity. Common impediments: Large magnitude meetings Unrefined product backlog Not needed for Scrum teams! Absent or unempowered PO Individualistic incentives Business meetings a necessity “Disney trip for top developer” Illness – go home! Individual-based performance reviews Broken builds Issues with tools No ‘I’ in ‘Scrum team’ Unreliable/overburdened supplier

Shortcut 9: Impediment Control Keeping impediments from taking over: ConTROL 1. Confirm Raise issue when found Track, monitor each 2. Triage Tackle 1 or 2 at a time 3. Remove Seek outside help? Make a PBI? 4. Outline Keep POs, sponsors in loop 5. Learn Analyze impediments in retrospective Goal: minimize impact when reoccur

Shortcut 9: Impediments Impediment vs. blockage Block: stopped progress on task, but blocked task not slowing down overall progress Often: newly identified task dependency resulting in waiting for another task Critical issue: ensure blocks are visible ScrumMaster: needs to know, needs to know plan to clear blockage

Ch. 3 Review 7: Setting the Scrum Stage Collocate teams, minimize changes 8: Plan the Sprint, Sprint the Plan Sprint length Realistic sprint capacity Structuring sprint planning 9: Incriminating Impediments Definitions: impediment, block Types of impediments to watch for How to ConTROL impediments