> -----Original Message----- > From: Kent Beck [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 4:04 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: how do you handle differing estimates by team > members? [Was]: [XP] More Chal > > 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.
A very interesting (and quite applicable) metaphor! :) > 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. OK, now I believe we're seeing eye-to-eye - I agree completely with this paragraph. Just to recap... our team had lost its focus on delivering stories, and our task-level estimates in actual time weren't all that good. We were still delivering features, but not as well as we had been. We have since moved our focus to the story level, and we're estimating in points rather than hours. Couple that with the ruthless application of Yesterday's Weather and we're again hitting our targets for completed features. I would like to be able to move to a more concrete measurement of story size, but we're just not very good at it yet. I guess the bottom line is that our team is quite good, and we're shipping production software at a rate that other teams in this client's organization envy. However, we're not perfect and still have work to do in order to optimize our process. Regarding time spent evaluating tools, etc., I spent about 8 hours last week doing precisely that. I usually have a quick glance at something, then run it by the team before going in depth. Our boss is very good at asking, "Do we really need to do that now?", and is equally good at listening to us if we say "Yes!". Dave Rooney Mayford Technologies http://www.mayford.ca 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/
