Agile Notes (No. 67)

Enter the Matrix - The Estimating Matrix

I have been reading Agile Coaching by Rachel Davies and Liz Sedley. This book was referenced by Lyssa Adkins in Coaching Agile Teams. I’m not sure how deep we are going to get with this book. It is a good entry-level book for Coaches, Scrum Masters and even Project Managers but it is very basic. This week comes from Chapter 7: Planning Ahead.

I am currently working with a team that is working through Backlog Grooming on a fairly regular cadence. Estimating has been a big topic of discussion. We started with trying to figure out what a 1-point story is. And then we grouped a bunch of 1s and checked our thinking.

The screen grab talks about story “cards” which tells you how old this book is - but the idea of creating a matrix is a solid one. The authors name check the OG, Mike Cohn and his triangulation method. This is exactly what this team is doing. We defined a 1. We are defining 3s and 5s. And I am sticking to my beliefs that any story greater than 5 needs to be broken up into smaller stories. And even 5s make me a little twitchy.

Larger stories are quicksand. It is a BIG red flag if you think a story is a 13 and are not able to figure out how to chunk it down. BIG. Red. Flag. You need to dig into those stories and figure out how to iterate. Big stories lead to spiraling problems.

I remember reading Cohn’s book when I first started down this road. I think I loaned it out. I have no idea where it is. It’s a great tool to help you get unstuck during story point estimations. If you are reading this and have my copy, pay it forward. :)

How about you? Do you have any tips you use with your team for estimating story points? Are you struggling with estimating - how can the group help?

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