#NoProjects / #BeyondProjects in InfoQ

InfoQ recently published my piece entitled “No Projects / Beyond Projects”, of course regular readers will know it should be titled “#NoProjects/#BeyondProjects.”

Read it for yourself and let me know what you think.

Estimating business value: adding Value poker and Dragons Den to the Agile toolkit

A common piece of advice heard in Agile circles is: “Prioritise by value. Do the highest value first.”
Sound advice, easy to say but perhaps harder to do.

And if you know me - or just read this blog regularly - you may have heard me say something like: “Estimate the benefit/value expected, measure what is actually delivered and feed this back to your decision making process: calibrate you benefit estimates, do more work where benefit is missing or change direction when it is not possible.”

I’m sure I could find more examples but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about: understand the benefit/value you expect to get - and possibly check it afterwards.

Easy really.

But there is a problem: How do you know what benefit/value is expected?

A good product manager or business analyst might be able to come up with some numbers. Good, but if you dig deep enough you’ll find assumptions or models in these figures which could be questionable. The better your analyst the deeper you will need to dig before any assumptions come to light.

As for teams who don’t have a product manager or business analyst, well, they aren’t even going to get that far before they find questionable assumptions.

Very often the expected benefit/value is a matter of conjecture and opinion.

So let me make a suggestion: Value poker.

This is a technique I’ve been using for a while and always teach it in my Agile for BAs courses. Whenever I mention it people get interested. To make it work I adapt a game-show format, specifically: Dragons Den, Sharks’ Tank if you are in the US.

Here is how you play…

Two teams.

One drawn from the people who are planning to build a product. This could be the entire development team, it could be just the product manager or business analyst with the product sponsor/champion. This team play the Entrepreneurs.

If need be this could be just one person (a product owner/business analysts/product manager) but it helps if there are two of them and if there is a whole team then bring them along too.

The second team is the Dragons/Sharks/Investors Team.

This team is probably a bigger. In a training session I usually use two teams from an earlier exercise where they have created user stories but in real life it is business managers from elsewhere in the business, perhaps product managers, analysts, sponsors and champions of other products. It could even be a high level committee - CEO, CFO, CTO, Sales, etc.

The Entrepreneurs come armed with a set of story cards - these could be in user story format, use case format or some other format, they could be epics or smaller. Whatever, the team need to believe each of these has business value.

Preferably I’d rather these cards did NOT have any effort estimates on them at this stage.
Then we set up a Dragons Den setting.

Next I ask the Entrepreneurs to pitch their product - the whole thing - to the Dragons. Usually one of the team who is a bit more entrepreneurial steps up. When the pitch is finished the dragons get to ask questions.

And we have a discussion back and forth.

Then, as moderator, I ask the Entrepreneurs for the lowest value item them have in their deck.
I take it from them and I invent a currency. This is usually named after the town I’m in, so I’ve invented Newcastle Shillings, Houston Dollars, Bath Spa Pounds or some such. Its imaginary, lets pretend I’m using London Dollars, L$.

I read out the card the Entrepreneurs gave me and make sure everyone understands what it is. If necessary the Dragons can ask some questions.

Then I write on the card L$10,000 - ten thousand London Dollars. I tell everyone about the imaginary currency and about London Dollars.

I then place the card in full view - on a magnetic whiteboard or blu-tacked to the wall, or somewhere.

I hand out the planning poker cards to the Dragons only and tell them the cards are now denominated in thousands of London Dollars. So a 1 card is worth L$1,000 and a 8 card is worth L$8,000, a 21 card is worth L$21,000 and so on.

And I ask the Entrepreneurs for the next card.

I take it, I read it out. I ask the Entrepreneurs if they want to add anything to what is written.

Then we take questions from the Dragons, and the discussion rolls.

After a while - sometimes a few minutes, sometimes a lot longer - I move to the vote, planning poker style.

I read the card out again and ask choose a card that indicates how many London Dollars this story is worth - relative to the L$10,000 card we already have.

I count down, 3, 2, 1 - show me!

And the Dragons hold up the cards. I average the answer and write the number on the story card. So, if I have a vote of 11, 21, 65 and 40 the value would be: 137/4 = L$34,000.

I usually don’t bother doing any discussion or re-voting, I just average - and I don’t care if the average is a number not on any planning poker card.

And we repeat - as a value estimate is assigned to one card we move to the next. Not every story needs to be estimated, the Entrepreneurs may decide to skip some once they see the results of previous rounds.

Entrepreneurs may write some new ones as conversations with Dragons reveals new ideas or prompts a rethink. Indeed one of the reasons I like to have more than one entrepreneur in the game is so that one can write new cards while the other is pitching and talking to the Dragons.

As each card is estimated it goes on the board with the others relative to the value assigned so everyone can see how the stories stack up.

People can really get into their role play, you can see some entrepreneurs really fighting for their product as the Dragons poke holes in the idea.

Sometimes - perhaps even most time - the conversations that occur as the game plays out are the most interesting bit. New features and functionality are brought to light. Sometimes the value the entrepreneurs see is not what the dragons see. Sometimes critical pieces of requirement or specification are discovered.

During the summer I played this game with a class in Louisiana, the entrepreneurs had created a set of stories around a food-truck locator app. Some of the stories related to the food-truck owner and some to a Hungry Jo. The entrepreneurs saw the value being on the food-truck owner side, so they emphasized this in their pitch and kept offering up stories abut the owner.

The dragons kept low-balling these stories, the entrepreneurs got frustrated and argued more, how the dragons didn’t realise what they saw.

At my promoting the entrepreneurs offered up a story about the Hungry Jo. To their surprise the dragons went high. This was the story the dragons saw value in.

Now you could say that it would be better to test the market - research or lean start-up - and I wouldn’t disagree but even if you do that it can be hard to put value behind stories. Plus, faced with 20 stories which one should you research or try first?

This approach applies wisdom of crowds. It gives you a starting point.

And as I just said, its just possible that the real value of the technique is not in the value it assigns to the cards - although that is useful - but in the conversation you have in the process.

Sure you end up with a fantasy valuation but you do have an idea of relative values, you do let stakeholders have their say, and you have some initial priorities. Much better than Must, Should, Could, etc. Potentially even better than 1, 2, 3, …

Maybe, just maybe, one day you might be able to see the value one story actually delivered - a jump in eyeballs, sales, donations or something. And with that you might be able to calculate what L$1 is worth.

Two final points before I end.

I try to keep effort estimates out of this. It is my (unproven) belief that if the dragons know the effort estimate on a card this will anchor their value estimate. I want value estimates to be made without reference to cost.

Second, a twist on this would be to revisit the story cards with a cost of delay dimension. So: value estimate the cards on the basis of “If you had this next month” then revisit then say “Now lets assume the cards aren’t ready for three months” and revote.

I haven’t had a chance to do that yet but I think it would be interesting.

Finally: if you get a chance to try this technique - or if you have done something similar already - please share, I’d love to heard what other people think of the technique and how it plays out elsewhere.

It is all X or Y management - and why Agile people should read Mintzberg

In the last few years it has become increasingly common to hear Agile supporters talking about Beyond Budgeting, indeed, I was instrumental in inviting Bjarte Bogsnes to deliver at keynotes at Agile on the Beach this year.

Agile and Beyond Budgeting are very different, one is mainly about developing software and other is concerned with budgeting, strategic management and personnel management (I cannot call it human resources.) Agile and Beyond Budgeting are not the same thing but they fit together very nicely - indeed they may share some common roots, I think of them as fellow travellers.

Similarly Lean and Agile fit together nicely, but then many of us - although not all - see them as different versions of the same thing.

Then there is John Seddon and the Systems Thinking crowd, they pop up at Agile conferences regularly but System Thinking is not Agile, nor is it Beyond Budgeting, but again, they do all promote a similar view of the world. Again, fellow travellers. (Although John Seddon will probably object to that, he seems make a point of rubbishing Agile.)

Underlying many of these ideas is organizational learning - something I wrote about myself in Changing Sofware Development - and something which seems to be experiencing renaissance in Agile circles.

And I’ve heard talk of Agile HR. I’m not sure what it is but I guess its also a fellow traveller.

And I’ve been told that some forms of marketing fall into this camp too. Another fellow traveller?

I increasingly see lots of ideas and models which cluster around a similar philosophy, they may not always agree but they generally fit together.

And this philosophy is in contrast with a lot of ideas in that are more generally accepted. For example: budgeting as planning, command and control management, hierarchical organizations, managers as task master and so on. You get the idea? This is another group of fellow travellers.

Some of you might have guessed where this is heading: McGregor.

Back in 1960 an academic by the name of Douglas McGregory published an article entitled “The human side of enterprise”. In it he laid out theories of how organizations work, Theory X and Theory Y. (I just checked and I am amazed to discover this 1961 book is still in print!)

Theory X is predicated on idea that people inherently dislike work - after all, wouldn’t you rather be watching TV? Therefore employees must be controlled and directed, they want security and all but a small elite have little ambition and shun responsibility.

From this theory we get the idea that annual budgets control spending, that bonuses incentivise people, managers control work, responsibility goes with authority and if managers don’t keep an eye on people they will slack off. Project planning and theories like Michael Porter’s view of business strategy all fall under this banner. These are the Theory X fellow travellers of traditional, or at least 20th century management and business.

Theory Y on the other hand is predicated on the belief that work leads to satisfaction and through work people can be more fulfilled and happier. People are naturally motivated and can exercise self-direction - indeed the more autonomy people have the more satisfied and motivated they can be. As a result people seek responsibility, want to feel valued and can be very committed to objectives.

Clearly theory Y would encompass Agile, Beyond Budgeting, self organization, team based working and amoeba management, systems thinking and possibly new forms of “Agile HR” and marketing.

I would like to think that these Theory Y fellow travellers represent the model of business and management in the 21st century. But I can’t prove it.

(By the way, I missed Lean out of that last list, while I argue that Agile is Lean, and Lean does embody much of the same Theory Y philosophy I have reservations about Lean. These concentrate on some overwork practice that have occurred in Lean, particularly Karōshi, death by overwork.

Most definitely I do NOT include 6 Sigma, ever, that is X.)

Little of this will be a new to those who have hung around “agile” for a few years but there is something else, something we’ve missed before….

Business strategy.

Theory X has business strategy sorted. Its about big men with big brains setting out strategies for competitive advantage. Michael Porter is the hero.

In Agile we haven’t really got our thinking sorted here so let me make a suggestion.

Henry Mintzberg

In Mintzberg’s world management, business and strategy are messy. Strategy is part pre-planned (Porter-esque) but it is also about what has happened before. The stories we tell ourselves, our understanding of what happened. Sometimes strategy is backward looking, sense making. Often strategy is messy because it is emergent, it comes from what we have done, what we have learned before. The firm may start off with a destination in mind but it will actually reach a different place. The distinction between strategy and tactics may not clear until long after the event.

The Agile community should be reading more Mintzberg. Fortunately he recently started blogging, http://www.mintzberg.org/blog.

One of his shorter strategy books would make a good start. But if you want a real read the Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning is brilliant. The parallels with software development, the rise and fall of waterfall, are striking. Indeed, only by understanding how the corporate world fell for strategic planning can one understand where waterfall really came from (hint: it isn’t Royce.)

Rise and Fall is a great book that is work reading but it isn’t a quick read and it requires thought. Try Strategy Bites Back if you want a shorter read.

More recently, and more relevantly for Agile folk are his recent works on management.

Managing (2009) - or the shorter version Simply Managing - should be required reading for anyone who wants to argue that Agile teams don’t need managers - and equally they should be required reading for anyone who blindly believes managers are needed. To have or not to have managers: it is not an easy question and both sides should be better informed.

(After reading both Managing and Simply Managing I thought I would write a article, or at least a blog, setting out the case for managers but its a lot to take on. Better to just read someone else’s book.)

Our world is complex, sometime the Theory X people may be right, and sometimes the Theory Y people. In the part of the world I live in Theory Y is the one I find most useful.

Does Agile require cultural change?

If Wood Allen was an Agile Coach Consultant he might say:

“#Agile without culture change is an empty experience; but as empty experience go its one of the best”

I sit in Agile conferences (and I include Lean and Kanban here) and I hear people say “To really become Agile you need culture change.” And I agree with them.

Yes, if you really want to be Agile, and get the greatest benefit from Agile you need to change the culture of the organization to embrace the Agile way. I agree.

And I also know that every speaker on this topic - and myself - warn again “doing Agile” without being Agile in culture and mindset. Heck, I kind of wrote a book about this once upon a time. For me “Agile culture” is a “Learning Organization Culture.”

But…

But Agile is a toolkit, you can pick out and use many of those tool without adopting others and without adopting an Agile mindset. For example, you can do Test Driven Development without the need to adopt an Agile culture in your organization. And even without culture change Test Driven Development (TDD) will make you better.

True, if you have to force march your programmers through TDD it isn’t going to be as beneficial as it will be if your programmers embrace TDD and want to do it and make it part of their life.

Given this we - and I include myself - build an argument for undertaking cultural change.

But, big BUT….

TDD is not alone, there are lots of tools in the Agile toolkit that you can pick up and use individually, or with a couple of others, which will help you improve. But if you want the full benefit, well, you are going to have to pick up more tools and change that culture!

Culture change is a far bigger effort than introducing any Agile tool - or even an Agile method.

And most of the people who go by the title “Agile coach” or “Agile consultant” or similar are - in my opinion - drawn from the technology side and aren’t necessarily equipped to undertake culture change initiatives. To be fair, I don’t think many people are equipped (training, experience, knowledge, etc) to undertake culture change.

Please don’t take offence Agile consultants/coaches, I include myself here. On paper I have more qualification to change culture than the vast majority of Agile consultants/coaches I meet and I’m wary of trying to change culture.

Certainly, if we believe folk-law (or the updated version “wisdom of crowds”) culture change is hard and often fails.

Let me say something some people will disagree with:

Culture Change is not necessary to introduce Agile. Culture change is not an enabler.

Rather culture change may be the result of adopting Agile.

I hope it is the result but I also recognise that organizations have the cultures they have and we mess with it at our peril, culture may look bad but embedded in there is a lot of knowledge and norms. Company culture is makes a company what it is, change it and you risk destroying the company. Messing with culture is likely to bring out the corporate antibodies.

Anyone who wants to change an organization, particularly anyone wanting to change tools, methods of working and culture in an organization is well advised to go and study the history of Business Process Re-engineering (BPR). BPR was an 1990’s attempt to change the ways companies work, through the use of technology, or make them more efficient. Agile has a lot in common with BPR but BPR is an example of how not to do it.

I am prepared to take people through Agile tools, practices, methods, I encourage them to adopt these approaches, and I don’t really work, directly, to change culture. I believe that if people start to live and Agile lifestyle then the culture will follow. I believe that Agile-Lean is good, I believe that if we pick tools which will make peoples work better in a way they appreciate it then I believe that in time the culture will change.

In short, I believe culture follows tools, the tools we choose to use - whether that be stand-up meetings, Jira, Rally or paper and pen - influence our culture and lead somewhere. Its not a one way street, its not that simple, but tools are a lot easier to change than culture.

Change come first, culture follows.

#NoProjects/#BeyondProjects - a developer footnote

Last Friday I delivered a revised version of my “The End of Projects and What to do Next” presentation - otherwise known as #NoProjects / #BeyondProjects. The presentation is on Slideshare if you missed it - or better still see it next week at Lean Kanban UK 2014 (use the code LK14SPK for 15% discount).

In the post conference drinks was chatting with a developer - Matt from New Zealand if my memory serves - and he came out with what some might think was a surprising comment. He said: “I’d never thought of a project like that before.”

Specifically he meant he’d never thought of “a project” in sense “project” is used by APM/PRINCE2 and PMI, which is:

• The PRINCE2 definition: “A temporary organization that is needed to produce a unique and predefined outcome or result at a pre-specified time using predetermined resources.”
• The PMI definition: "PMI defines a project by its two key characteristics: it is temporary and undertaken to create a product, service, or result that is unique."

He went on to say that he believed “a project” was “a collection of features.” I can’t say I’m surprised by this, I think many people regard a project as “a collection of features.”

In fact I’ve long suspected that many developers don’t even get that far. To many developers a project isn’t any of these things, a project is “A collection of source code files that build an application.” Back when I was coding C++ this was exemplified by Microsoft Visual Studio where .prj files (i.e. .project files) listed the source code files and “make” instructions to build an executable.

I have a lot of sympathy with this - and other - developers who take this attitude. One might say they have moved to an Beyond Projects mindset already.

The term Project is being used, it is the language of the team but it is being used to mean different things. When this happens the people are using the same words but are not talking about the same thing. Goals, objectives, aims, deadlines, and everything else is missed up.

Its just another example if what I call “False Projects” - using the word “project” without really meaning it.

Dialgue Sheets (2 of 2): Searching for Guinea Pigs

This post follow directly on from my previous one, Dialogue Sheets and Update.

I’m looking for some guinea pigs….

Are there any teams out there who would like to try a dialogue sheet focused on requirements?

I’ve long thought that Dialogue Sheets would be a good way of discussing software needs, requirements, customers, problems and such. I’ve started designing some sheets to address this - the first one is a high level Products and Customers sheet. In intend to produce a more day-to-day product sheet and a sheet of internal IT.

Now I’d really like some teams to step up and say: We’d like to try one of these sheets.

There is no charge for this and I’ll supply the sheet. I need a teams which are willing to give me half a day.

I’ll give you the sheet, I’ll observe as you complete it, we’ll debrief and thats that.

Preferably I’d like my guinea pigs in the Greater London area (because that is easy and cheap for me) but I’m happy to come wherever you are. (OK I might have a problem is you are a few thousand kilometres away but lets talk.)

Interested?

Call me or mail me - contact details here.

Dialogue Sheets update (1 of 2)

It has been a while since I’ve written about Dialogue Sheets here - or indeed anywhere else. So here is a quick update and a request for some guinea pigs - I have ideas for new sheets but I need some teams to try them out. (If you want to be a guinea pig for a new sheet skip to the end of this blog.)

The impetus for writing this blog is a new French translation of the T1 Retrospective sheet. I am most grateful to Nicolas Umiastowski for this translation which is now available with the other sheets.

Nicolas has blogged (“Retrospective dialogue sheet in use”) - with photos - about using the sheet this week with a team. The post is well worth reading, everyone was involved and it sounds like there was a lot of energy in the room.

More generally, the sheets continue to be used by teams, lots of downloads still happen from the Dialogue Sheets website. Unfortunately I don’t get much feedback on what happens after the download. If you have download a sheet and have tried them then I’d love to hear how it went and what you think.

Now some statistics.

There have been over 3000 downloads since 1 January 2012 from 94 countries.

(A word of warning here. I’ve made no attempt to cleanse the data. I know it contains some duplicates and some fake e-mail address (e.g. a@b.com) so I assume some of the downloads are fake. Given there are now over 3000 downloads I think (hope?) this doesn’t make a big difference.)

Unsurprisingly the USA leads the world with 20% of downloads, then the UK (15%) after which numbers quickly tail away: Germany (6.5%), France (5.5%), Sweden (4.75%), Norway (3.9%), Australia (3.8%), Netherlands (3.5%), India (2.8%) and Canada (2.75%).

I am sure one of the reasons France scores so highly is Laurent Carbonnaux’s translation of the Sprint sheet. Nicolas’ translation could see France overtake Germany. (I hope we’ll get some more translations and have added some notes on translation to the website.)

The most interesting story I’ve heard this year about Dialogue Sheets is from Sweden - the country where they were originally invented. I am told that there is a childrens’ nursery school (kindergarten) where the teachers hold a fortnightly retrospective using the sprint retrospective sheet! Wonderful.

The statistic I still find most interesting the retrospective frequency question.

I ask all downloaders “How frequently do you hold a retrospective (at the moment) ?”

Nearly 8% of downloaders say they are retrospective facilitators. Excluding these people, 47% of downloaders claim to hold a retrospective regularly (every two weeks or once a month.) But 44% say they never or rarely hold a retrospective.

Now I think it is fair to say we can expect those who hold retrospectives regularly to be more interested in these sheets therefore I expect these figures to be biased towards such people. In other words, if 44% of people interested in retrospective dialogue sheets say they rarely hold a retrospective I expect the true number of software professionals who hold a retrospective rarely to be a lot higher. Sad.

Moving on from numbers, some other changes.

About 18 months ago I introduced an Iteration Planning sheet, this doesn’t have so many downloads (over 200 in total). I’ve also written a description of how to use this sheet (same page). I know my style of planning is slightly different from everyone else’s - heck no two teams are ever the same! (Since I published Xanpan it have wondered if maybe I should rename this sheet as a “Xanpan planning sheet.”)

When I do training sessions I leave the teams copies of both the Sprint Retrospective sheet and the Planning sheet to help get them started. By all reports they help a lot.

The print on demand service is still there, it is little used and I was recently able to reduce the prices there. But if I’m being honest I don’t think the price of a Dialogue Sheet is a bit issue for two reasons. Firstly unless you are buying a lot of sheets, and unless you live in the USA, you will probably find the cost of postage greater than the sheets themselves. Hence I think most teams get these sheets printed locally.

Second, I think teams that have to ask for money have as much trouble getting $50 as $500. So it is the fact that the sheets cost rather than how much they cost which is the problem.

Now to the innovations….

I continue to use the Agile Thinking sheet at the end of Agile training courses to help teams talk about how they will put the training into action. This has proved very very successful. Steve Smith has recently adopted a similar sheet on his continuous delivery courses.

While I’m writing this I should mention some other changes that happened a while back, I retired the T2 sheet - it was not different enough from the T1, T3 and Sprint versions. And I updated the T1 and Sprint sheets - the Sprint sheet now has time boxes on it to aid with keeping the retrospectives to schedule.

One more thing… but that can wait for the next blog post.

#NoProjects / #BeyondProjects - Agile Tour & Lean Kanban UK conference

The next few weeks sees me delivering my #NoProjects/#BeyondProjects presentation at two London conference - Agile Tour London (Friday this week) and Lean Kanban UK (3 & 4 November). In fact I spent a lot of yesterday refreshing the presentation. Problem is there is just too much to say, the more I look at it the more problems I find with the project model but at the same time I want to make the presentation more positive by emphasising the alternative, the Beyond Projects bit.

Anyway, the reason for mentioning this is… the good folk at Lean Kanban UK have sent me a discount coupon to share with my readers.

When booking on the Lean Kanban UK website use the code LK14SPK for 15% discount. Simple, really.

Contracts for Agile

Last night I did a presentation to the Agile 4 Agencies meet up group on the topic of “Agile Contracts” - although I believe “Contracts for Agile” might have been a better title.

This was based on my InfoQ Agile Contracts piece from 4 years ago - also available as a PDF from the Software Strategy website. My thinking and experience has moved a bit since then and some of that was incorporated into the presentation.

When creating the presentation I very much set out to work from the original piece, although as anyone familiar with my writing will know, this territory touches on “Dear Customer, The Truth about IT” (Agile Connection and now the prologue to Xanpan - which is also available from the Software Strategy website - my stuff has a habit of being reused.)

Anyway, the “Agile Contracts” is now online at SlideShare. And I believe a recording of the night might appear before long…

The Estimates Land Mine - use and misuse of estimates

After posting my last post - Estimate or #NoEstimate that is the question? - I felt a little as if I’d stepped on a land-mine. That is to say I had a few comments and a bit a mini-twitter storm. If I’m being honest I have been avoiding some of the estimates/#NoEstimates debate until now precisely because it is obvious feelings on the topic run high.

Perhaps the thing that surprised me most was that a post intended to support making human estimates was interpreted by many Tweeters as part of the #NoEstimates movement! Maybe convergence between #NoEstimates and #NoProjects is already happening in the public mind.

In the meantime it seems to me that a lot of the problem with Estimates lies in what they are, what they are not, how they are used and how they are mis-used.

As is so often the case it all depends on what we mean by the word, in this case “Estimate”.

Generally I find it useful to agree with Humpty Dumpty:

“When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." (Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Caroll).

After all, who can forget Bill Clinton saying:

“It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is.”

While I am sometimes guilty of the use and misuse of words myself I find it helps to keep an open mind on just what someone means when they use a word or phrase. For example, if a developer says “Unit tests” I try not to jump to assumptions about what “Unit tests” actually are. The fact that such language is used is itself interesting but I also want to know what they actually mean by it.

But back to the word “Estimates.”

On occasions like this I like to check my dictionary, in this case the :

“Estimate

        1.        to form an approximate idea of (size, cost, etc.); calculate roughly

        2.        to form an opinion; judge

        3.        submit an approximate price for a job to a prospective client

        4.        an approximate calculation

        5.        a statement of the likely charge for certain work

        6.        an opinion” (Collins Paperback English Dictionary 2001)

My other usual source is Wikipedia which on this occasion gives:

“Estimation is the process of finding an estimate, or approximation, which is a value that is usable for some purpose even if input data may be incomplete, uncertain, or unstable. The value is nonetheless usable because it is derived from the best information available.”

From these definitions I define a sense that an estimate is:

• Approximate
• A statement of possibility
• Is based on available data which may itself be incomplete or variable

Maybe all estimates should be accompanies by a statement of probability but as Kahneman and Tversky described in the planning fallacy, and has been proved repeatedly since, not only do humans underestimate time but humans are over confident in their estimates. Thus any estimate probability statement would probably itself be an over estimate of probability.

Besides, very few of the “estimates” I’ve ever seen are accompanied by a statement of probability so I don’t think this suggest will get very far.

More importantly these definitions also help tell us determine what an estimate is not:

• As estimate is not exact
• An estimate is not a promise, guarantee or commitment
• An estimate is not a target or deadline

And it is not several other things.

Now in my previous blog post I introduced the idea of “Accurate Estimates” so I was actually sneaking in the idea that an estimate could have a high probability and could be an accurate indicator of what will happen. Perhaps I was guilty of something there.

The trap I fell into is one that many fall into, that of accepting the general usage of the word “Estimate”.

In general usage - in the software community - we misuse the word estimate.

Firstly we automatically equate Estimate with “Effort Estimate”: effort (and therefore cost) estimate proliferate in software development but we overlook other estimates that might be useful, in particular Benefit Estimate.

Second the inherently approximate nature of estimation is too often ignore, estimated are endowed with a sense of promise of what will be rather than recognising their inherent approximate nature. (And as noted in the Planning Fallacy, Vierordt’s Law and Hofstadter's Law time estimates will always be under estimates.)

This also leads to too much conversation about “Why was the estimate wrong?” - sometime blame may be implied. The answer to the question is really: “The estimate is not wrong because it was an ESTIMATE” That is to say: An estimate is never wrong because an estimate is an approximation and therefore is not binary “Right” or “Wrong”.

Sure you can have a conversation about why the estimate was very different to what actually played out but the nature of that conversation is going to be different depending on what you will do with the findings of the conversation. For example, if the resulting information is used to refine future estimates it will be a very different conversation to one where the result will be punishment for someone. (Yes, people do get punished, I once saw a company where Project Managers were rewarded/punished based on the variance between estimated time spent on work and actual time spent.)

In short too often an approximate estimates based on variable information is used as some kind of exact promise to meet a deadline.

Software developers love to imagine it is evil managers who take their estimates, massage them to be politically correct, promise them to higher ups and then force poor coders to honour the number they first thought, but, big BUT, managers are not the only ones. Even in everyday life the Planning Fallacy, Vierordt’s Law and Hofstadter’s Law hold. Observe yourself next time you have to catch a bus, train, complete a tax return, hand in course work or do something (almost anything) with your kids.

I would love it if I could wave a magic wand and reset everyones’ understanding of the word Estimate but I don’t see it happening.

And I think - although Woody and Vasco might like to correct me - that a large part of the #NoEstimates movement is motivated by this problem. The way I see the logic is:

• Estimates are seldom recognised for what they really are and honoured as such.
• Estimates are misused and used as a stick to beat people and organizations.
• Therefore estimates have become a problem and it is better of finding a way or working without them.

I’m not saying this is the whole #NoEstimates logic but it is part which strikes a chord with me.

Incidentally, because I believe estimates are not a promise I don’t believe in Scrum commitment and because I believe they are approximate that in Xanpan I focus their use on the near term. And because I believe benefits should dictate deadlines not effort I refuse to use estimates as deadlines.