The focus of this article is the estimation aspect of the product backlog. For additional information on SCRUM, do a search on Google or YouTube. There are many sites and videos that will give you an overview in no time.
What is a WAG?
If you’re from the UK, you might think this is an acronym for girlfriends or wives of famous football (soccer) players, in terms of software development, however, WAG is an acronym for Wild @$$ Guess.
Technical budget:
Table Top T-shirt Size (S, M, L, XL)
Each pending item is written on a 3×5 index card and placed on a table.
Identify the smallest sized item to act as the reference point (S).
Group each card, with each corresponding group about twice as large as the first.
(M=P+P, L=M+M)
Any item larger than XL is an epic that is too large to estimate.
(These need to be reassessed and broken down into a size that can be estimated)
Once all the elements (cards) are placed in their groups. Points are assigned to each size.
Fibonacci numbers can be used or simply doubled, for example:
Double: S=1, M=2, L=4, XL=8
Fibonacci: S=1, M=3, L=8, XL=13
poker schedule
Each backlog item is discussed with participating team members.
Each participant has a deck of planning poker cards.
Once the product portfolio item has been discussed, everyone shows their card.
If the estimates are close together, the largest of the estimates is taken. If there are large differences between the estimates, then the tallest and the shortest discuss out loud why they think their estimate is more accurate.
For distributed teams, there is software available that will allow you to do this exercise.
Velocity
In physics, velocity is the rate of change of position.
In Scrum, velocity is how much product backlog effort a team can handle in one sprint.
Example: Product Backlog of 1000 Points
The team has burned 300 points in three sprints.
The speed is 100 points per sprint.
At current speed, this team would project finishing the remaining 700 points in 7 sprints.