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User Stories and Tasks – Part 3

Estimation Techniques

There are a number of estimation techniques that a Scrum Master can use to assist the team in sizing each story.

Planning Poker

The most popular technique is planning poker. This method involves handing out a set of cards, usually containing a series of Fibonacci numbers, to each team member. The Product Owner then takes each story in turn and describes it in as much detail as possible. Following this, each team member picks the card which they think is the correct size for that particular story and places the card face down in front of them.

When everyone has selected their card, they are turned face up to see what the scoring is. If there is a wide variation in scoring, the lowest scorer and the highest scorer are normally asked to give their reasons, and then a re-score is carried out. The Scrum Master then assists with taking the average and marks it down as being the size of the story before moving on to the next item on the list.

T-Shirt Sizing

This estimation method can be used when the team seems to be spending too much time trying to get to a very exact number of story points, possibly because some team members are equating this with the number of hours required to complete the work. When using t-shirt sizing, estimates are selected from a range of extra-small, small, medium, large, extra-large, or double extra-large.

While this technique can help in situations where people are becoming too analytical and getting bogged down in the details, it does require additional effort on the Scrum Master’s part, as he/she will then need to assist with translating the t-shirt sizes into the number of story points at a later stage when the planning session is over. It tends to be more common to use this technique when people are relatively new to agile, or when a team has been newly formed. Over time, as the team gels together, it would be more appropriate to move to a somewhat more sophisticated technique like planning poker.

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Master of Agile – Scrum Product Owner With 59 Seconds Agile (Video Training Course)

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This ‘Master of Agile – Scrum Product Owner With 59 Seconds Agile (Video Training Course)’ provides an in-depth understanding of the Scrum Product Owner roles and responsibilities

You will explore the Agile Scrum project life-cycle, including how an Agile User Story is created, to how we know when it is ‘done’

This course is aimed at those with or without prior knowledge and experience of the Agile values and principles

During this course you will learn the tools needed to succeed as a Scrum Product Owner

What will you learn?

You will gain an in-depth understanding of the Scrum Product Owner roles and responsibilities, and you will be able to

  • Fully understand the role of the Scrum Product Owner
  • Understand the roles involved in an Agile project
  • Create an effective Product Backlog
  • Effectively participate in Scrum Meetings such as the Daily Stand-up, Sprint Review and Retrospective
  • Identify the roles involves in the Scrum Team

What topics are covered within this course?

You will cover the following topics during this course:

  1. An Introduction to Agile Project Management (Product Owner)
  2. The 12 Agile Principles (Product Owner)
  3. The Declaration of Interdependence (Product Owner)
  4. Introduction to Scrum (Product Owner)
  5. Scrum Project Roles (Product Owner)
  6. The Agile Project Life-cycle (Product Owner)
  7. Acceptance Criteria and the Prioritised Product Backlog (Product Owner)
  8. Epics and Personas (Product Owner)
  9. Sprint Planning (Product Owner)
  10. User Stories (Product Owner)
  11. The Daily Scrum (Product Owner)
  12. The Product Backlog (Product Owner)
  13. Scrum Charts (Product Owner)
  14. Review and Retrospective (Product Owner)
  15. Validating a Sprint (Product Owner)
  16. Releasing the Product (Product Owner)

Our Book Recommendations

We found these books great for finding out more information on Agile Scrum:

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