Dave, I'm reminded of the sausage factory. There is a sense in which all that matters is whether I enjoy my bratwurst. That's one level of accountability. However, if the sausage factory owners don't want me to visit the factory because I would be disgusted by what I saw there, that's a superficial form of accountability.
Similarly, while ulimately we are measured by the value of the features we add, I think it's useful to work on the process until we are as proud of the process by which we create the features as we are by the features themselves. If part of this process is that I spend four hours every week playing with new open source tools, I should either find a way to be proud of that or I shouldn't do it on company time. Kent Beck Three Rivers Institute > -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Rooney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 11:38 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: how do you handle differing estimates by team > members? [Was]: [XP] More Chal > > > > Kent, > > When I talked about using relative story size estimation, our > boss had a great term for what we had been doing... > Artificial Precision. What we lacked in accuracy we made up > for with artificial precision. We were OK at estimating > tasks, but not so good at the story level. Now, we're > estimating stories in relative points, and focusing more on > delivering stories rather than just the tasks. Since we've > done this, life is good again. I take that to mean that > we're not as good at estimating actual times as we are > estimating the relative size of stories. For us, > accountability comes from delivering completed stories as > opposed to sticking to a plan derived from actual time > estimates. We've also switched to one-week iterations, which > means that any problems or inaccurate estimates are apparent > much sooner. > > I would like to point out that our team doesn't have a lack > of experience with XP. We've been working with it actively > for 2 years now. When I say we aren't as experienced, I mean > it relative to people like yourself and Ron, etc. who have > been using XP since the mid to late 90's. Our team 'falls > off the wagon' occasionally, but we're doing a pretty good > job of sticking to agile principles. > > Dave Rooney > Mayford Technologies > http://www.mayford.ca > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Kent Beck [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: November 5, 2004 12:40 PM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: RE: how do you handle differing estimates by team > > members? [Was]: [XP] More Chal > > > > > > > > Dave, > > > > I think where we disagree is that I think it is better to be > > crystal clear up front even though the wiggle room you have > > without finite accountablilty feels nice and safe. Using > > points instead of hours does not actually cover up your > > team's lack of experience, even if it feels better. It does > > make it harder to show when they have gained experience since > > you don't have finite measures to compare. Kent Beck Three > > Rivers Institute > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: Dave Rooney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 3:20 AM > > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Subject: RE: how do you handle differing estimates by > team members? > > > [Was]: [XP] More Chal > > > > > > I don't believe there's anything here about which we're > > disagreeing, > > > other than whether it's better to use story points or hours for > > > estimates. In your case, and with your experience, hours > > work better. > > > In my case, with less experience, hours haven't worked as > > well whereas > > > story points are working better. Once our team has more > > experience, > > > we can probably go back to using hours. > > > > > > > > To Post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.com > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > To Post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.com > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > To Post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.com Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
