Question

Agile Project Management and Scrum

3. What do you need to make estimates as a team using “Estimation Poker”?

4. How do you resolve differences in estimation with “Estimation Poker”?

5. When should you use affinity estimating and how are differences in estimates resolved?

Answer 1

3) While making estimates, following are needed:

• product owner/s= answers questions raised by estimators
• moderator- to take notes on the discussion/ understand, conduct the Estimation Poker process
• description of the user story for which estimation is being made
• a card representing his or her estimate, for each estimator involved

4) Resolving differences in estimation:

• high and low estimators explain the reason for their estimates
• After the discussion, each estimator re-estimates by again selecting a card
• Above process is repeated until a consensus is reached
• Discussions should be kept productive
• Estimation process should be break out into smaller sessions

5) Affinity estimating:

• This technique should be used if a project has just started, and has a backlog that hasn’t been estimated yet, or in preparation for release planning
• Should be used when a positive and collaborative experience is required to be created and not just a confrontational exercise
• When decision has to be fairly transparent to every member

Resolving differences:

• By doing Silent Relative Sizing of the user stories
• rearrange the order that was decided in the first step
• Placing items into relative sizing buckets
• The product owner may revise the size
• Documenting the estimation data from every member