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diff --git a/posts/programming/2020-12-08-useful-sprint-planning-from-a-certified-scrum-master.html b/posts/programming/2020-12-08-useful-sprint-planning-from-a-certified-scrum-master.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2334b39 --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/programming/2020-12-08-useful-sprint-planning-from-a-certified-scrum-master.html @@ -0,0 +1,209 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html> + <head> + <link rel="stylesheet" href="/includes/stylesheet.css" /> + <meta charset="utf-8" /> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" /> + <meta + property="og:description" + content="The World Wide Web pages of Adam Carpenter" + /> + <meta property="og:image" content="/includes/images/logo_diag.png" /> + <meta property="og:site_name" content="53hor.net" /> + <meta + property="og:title" + content="Useful Sprint Planning from a Certified Scrum Master" + /> + <meta property="og:type" content="website" /> + <meta property="og:url" content="https://www.53hor.net" /> + <title> + 53hornet ➙ Useful Sprint Planning from a Certified Scrum Master + </title> + </head> + + <body> + <nav> + <ul> + <li> + <a href="/"> + <img src="/includes/icons/home-roof.svg" /> + Home + </a> + </li> + <li> + <a href="/about.html"> + <img src="/includes/icons/information-variant.svg" /> + About + </a> + </li> + <li> + <a href="/software.html"> + <img src="/includes/icons/git.svg" /> + Software + </a> + </li> + <li> + <a href="/hosted.html"> + <img src="/includes/icons/desktop-tower.svg" /> + Hosted + </a> + </li> + <li> + <a type="application/rss+xml" href="/rss.xml"> + <img src="/includes/icons/rss.svg" /> + RSS + </a> + </li> + <li> + <a href="/contact.html"> + <img src="/includes/icons/at.svg" /> + Contact + </a> + </li> + </ul> + </nav> + + <article> + <h1>Useful Sprint Planning from a Certified Scrum Master</h1> + + <p class="description"> + This is a small collection of sprint planning/story points allocation + tips and tricks that I use at work. They pretty much all come from our + in-house certified "Scrum Master". He's got much better experience than + I do with building a real working backlog of stories and planning + sprints based on those stories. That being said, any opinions here are + my own and I don't speak on his behalf. + </p> + + <h2>Points as a Measure of Work</h2> + + <p> + In my understanding, points are approximate measures of the amount of + work required to complete a given story or task. I do not think points + correlate to an exact measure of time. I use them to determine the size + of a task in relation to another task. For example, a simple-looking + task may be allocated 1 point. In reality this 1 point may take 1 minute + or 1 hour to complete. The time it takes is less important than the + ratio of time it takes in comparison to a second given task. Say the + second task appears to take twice as much time as the first (however + much time that may be). The second task would therefore get 2 points. + </p> + + <p> + Some teams have a special system for incrementing points. Our team uses + the + <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci#Fibonacci_sequence" + >Fibonacci sequence of numbers</a + >. So the smallest amount that can be allocated to a story is 1. Then it + goes 2, 3, 5, 8, and so on and so forth. If a single story is going to + use up 8 points, you should probably take a look at breaking it up into + smaller tasks. A single story shouldn't take up almost half of your + allocated work for a sprint. + </p> + + <h2>How Much is Enough?</h2> + <p> + Our team aims for 10 points per 2-week per sprint. Simple enough for me, + but the hard part is determining how many points to allocate to a given + task. + </p> + + <p> + One thing I could never figure out is what the recommended starting + position for 1 point looks like. I'm sure this is something that comes + from experience, and our Scrum Master helped us out with that. + </p> + + <ul> + <li> + 1 point: Small or basic text change. Updating configuration, fixing a + typo or cognitively simple bug. + </li> + <li> + 2 points: Task with light complexity. Some portions of code have to + change, be debugged, tested. + </li> + <li> + 3 points: Some complexity, will take time to implement. Potentially a + few days' worth of work. May require front- and back-end work, or + back-end and database work. + </li> + <li> + 5 points: Half a sprint's worth of more complicated work. Full-on + feature implementation for example. + </li> + </ul> + + <h2>Prioritizing Work</h2> + + <p> + I do not see points as indicative of the importance or priority of a + task or story. Just because one task will take longer to complete than + another does not mean it's more or less important to me. There should be + another method of gauging which stories should be taken off the backlog + first. For example, one story might depend on another. One might relate + to core functionality that a stakeholder has asked for. Another task + might be required to make code build because it solves some major + problem! + </p> + + <p> + To communicate how "important" a task is, every story we have is + prioritized something like this: + </p> + <ol> + <li>Critical</li> + <li>Blocker</li> + <li>Highest</li> + <li>High</li> + <li>Medium</li> + <li>Low</li> + <li>Lowest</li> + </ol> + + <p> + Tasks that align with some long-term project that management is waiting + on are tagged "Highest". Stories that prevent lots of other stories from + being completed may be labeled "Blocker". + </p> + + <h2>Sprint Planning/Backlog Refinement</h2> + + <p> + With all that in mind, at the start of the sprint I now take about 10 + points worth of priority work off of the backlog. I'll work through it + the whole sprint through and then, ideally, it'll all be complete by the + end of the sprint. If I bit off more than I could chew and the sprint + ends before I'm finished, the incomplete work rolls over to the next + sprint and is the first to be completed. If I find I've finished + everything I had to work on and there are still a couple of days left in + the sprint, I'll take one or two small items off the backlog and work on + those. + </p> + + <h2>Tools to Get the Job Done</h2> + + <p> + Our team uses Jira at work, and I know some folks love it so much + they've paid for a personal license. It's a bit overkill for my personal + projects, so I've been using Nextcloud's Deck plugin. This is an okay + solution but it doesn't integrate very well with source code + repositories (although it can tie into a Nextcloud "project", or a + collection of related files open to a team). I'm spinning up a Gitea + server to replace my <code>git-web</code> server soon and this is one of + the reasons for that. Gitea has a GitHub-style issue tracker where you + can create issues of various kinds, assign them to users, reference + commits to the source, and create a Kanban-style board of issues that + are on the backlog, to-do, in-progress, or done. + </p> + + <p> + I'm still learning how to keep to a Scrum-like process of some kind, + because I do see the benefit of using such a system, especially in a + team. I'm definitely not an expert though so some of what I've got here + may change over time. Right now it's working well and that's good enough + for me. + </p> + </article> + </body> +</html> |