Planning Poker - the problem continues…

Sorry guys still I didn't find sufficient answers to post here for the previous post I posted about problems when playing Planning poker.. I will provide answers once I find some good and logical explanations..
Now I have a new problem…. There you go… :
When Playing planning poker the team express ideas in front of the product owner to come in to a conclusion about the weight of user stories, clarifications, etc.
We do not have programmed robots in our teams to have same level of knowledge and skills. Though SCRUM is for good for good developers, ( Or even Software development is good for good developers according to Ken Schwaber - SCRUMforTEAMSYSTEM) in reality we get a mix to our teams..
So after observing the discussions going on …there is a product owner who says… Look I don't want guy X and Y in this team.. I need another like guy Z instead of X and Y . then we can burn down the back log more faster in sprints.. You guys agree to burn down only this amount in this sprint because your guys are not experienced. In traditional Project management what we do is we colour all our user front ending with really experienced and good guys and get the project delivered some way or the other. In SCRUM as we produce this much of transparency, Anybody who faced this issue and could you please explain how to overcome this issue..?

101 post

Oh I really cant believe this .. Today Im writing my 101 post and its about something really cool..

Its hard to believe that I have earned some money from the blog.. And I received a gift card from Amazon :-).. So I can look forward to own some very good books..

Thanks to all you readers for reading my posts..Clicking the adds, Purchasing the Podcast.

More than anything Im so grateful for having patience with me for all my never delivered promises.. and specially reading not perfect language..

This blog helped me to network with most the known professionals around the world.. Im so happy about that. The knowledge we share is so valuable.

Thank you blog! Kiss kiss.. :-) Hug too... !! you are 100 posts rich.. ! ( some of them must be crap though ;-)

Problem I faced with Planning Poker

I copied this cartoon from www.implementingscrum.com.. Im a cartoon freek.. and thrilled to see SCRUM in cartoons...:-)

We played planning Poker for the 1st time and following are the problems I faced.. I will find the answers for these questions from experts and post them here later..

1. When Moderator reads 1 story we kept playing Poker and came out of an estimation to that specific story., But when we went through the PB more and more., team wanted to revise the previous story estimates again as its a comparative thing., How do you handle this situation?
Do you get the team to analyze the PB before coming to Planning poker so they will be more or less accurate with their comparative guess with other user stories in the rest of the product backlog?

2.There was one user story which we had to purchase some device for that. Scrum master ask where do we do the procurement management, planning , Cost estimation etc, Will SCRUM has some guidelines for procurement management for the project.

3. Customer who acted as the product owner didnt have answers for some of the questions.. there were situations such as I need to check with my infrastructure guys.. I need to ask my BI manager etc. How do you tackle that situation?

4. for certain stories we felt that we need the use cases or further analysis before thinking of their weight. ..

5. Looking at from the Project Office I saw many team for many projects they had different type of assessments. As an Example., same story "User needs to log in to the site and fill the registration form" was rated by the Team A as 5 and Team B as 20.. so how do I compare and see each team performance from the top when I look at my teams product burn down charts?

Comparison of SCRUM Vs PMBOK

Comparison Of Pmbok And Scrum

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: backlog scrum)

* credit http://projectized.blogspot.com as the source
* do not publish it (in print or on the web)
* do not circulate it (please direct people to this address)

How to play Planning Poker

Planning Poker is a game which help us to do planning in Scrum. We can use it for adding the weight to the user stories.
Ok this is how it is played..
1. Scrum master get ready with the Planning Poker card pack for each member of the team who participate this session
a. Those cards should have numbers such as 0,1/2 ,1,2,3,5,8,13,20,40,100. (Why these numbers ? Let me find out and tell you .. : )
b. Write the Numbers large so it is visible when needed.
2. Appoint a moderator (Can be anybody)
3. Ask the Product Owner to come to the Session ( He doesn't play Poker)
4. Moderate Read out the 1st User story
5. Team members question the Product Owner about the story and Product owner answer them
6. After all questions are answered, each estimator privately selects a card representing his or her estimate.
7. When everybody is ready all the members put selected card to the table.
8. There can be major variations., one member may have selected 2 while the other person has selected 5
9. Then they give reasons for selecting those numbers. One may think there is some additional research needed to perform the task., another may have thought much more easier way to do that task
10. Once all these points are discussed and asked the questions from the product owner, again the team play the Poker - This time its expected it to be more similar numbers
11. Of the numbers are not quite satisfactory it goes through another round. In normally you play the game for 2 rounds per story point. But there is no rule for that.
12. In last round if everybody comes with 3 and only one person comes with 5., we ask him or her whether she is agreeable to estimate the weight points as 3. If she agrees , we have no issue., if she doesn't agree we need to listen to the reasons.
i. Planning Poker brings Multiple experts opinion to the table
ii. It has the team buy in for the final decision
iii. Averaging Individual estimates lead to better results
iv. Its more fun than just traditional project estimation by Project Managers and few senior members of the team

- This idea is extracted from Mike Cohn's Agile estimation and planning.

Planning Poker for distant team members

This is a great Idea.. How do you play planing poker if some or all the team members have a problem of getting to one location physically.. Which is always the situation in my case

I found this online Planning Poker game.. .. :-)

http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/page/26

WOW !! will it really work.. ? I think soo...

Problems when playing Planning Poker.

We played Planning Poker for the 1st time and I experienced the following situations.
But It was really great. I think that does the purpose. I will try to find the answers for the following problems I faced and post them in the blog..


1. When Moderator reads 1 story we kept playing Poker and came out of an estimation to that specific story., But when we went through the PB more and more., team wanted to revise the previous story estimates again as its a comparative thing., How do you handle this situation?
Do you get the team to analyze the PB before coming to Planning poker so they will be more or less accurate with their comparative guess with other user stories in the rest of the product backlog?

2.There was one user story which we had to purchase some device for that. Scrum master ask where do we do the procurement management planning, Cost estimation etc, Will SCRUM has some guidelines for
procurement management for the project.

3. Customer who acted as the product owner didnt have answers for some of the questions.. there were situations such as I need to check with my infrastructure guys.. I need to ask my BI manager etc. How do you tackle that situation?

4. for certain stories we felt that we need the use cases or further analysis before thinking of their weight. ..

5. Looking at from the Project Office I saw many team for many projects they had different type of assessments. As an Example., same story "User needs to log in to the site and fill the registration
form" was rated by the Team A as 5 and Team B as 20.. so how do I compare and see each team performance from the top when I look at my teams product burn down charts?

PMBOK or RUP ?

Im sure you are one of them... Just like me.. Just lost in between SCRUM and PMBOK ways.Which way to go.. Both are good .. Both have its - points too. This is a great article which I found and I'm sure this will help most of you readers up to an extend..

"Many organizations wish to standardize their software engineering practices as well as their project management (PM) practices, and two well-known processes are available to help in both these areas, respectively. The IBM® Rational® Unified Process,® or RUP®, offers a prescriptive approach for standardizing on software engineering best practices, and the Project Management Institute® (PMI®) Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge® (PMBOK®) offers a descriptive approach for standardizing on project management best practices. With both these approaches available to organizations, the question becomes: Are they compatible? The simple answer is, "Yes."

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/4721.html

But have you seen RUP is practiced as RUP anywhere.. I haven't seen..Because RUP does not cover all the aspects of Project management as a whole. There are many specific agile PM methodologies which are elaborated from RUP which is practiced successfully in the industry.. SCRUM is almost every agile lovers favorite toy at the moment...

I will post a presentation about the comparison between both methodologies in near future.. ( Yeah I hear you I promise a lot and never deliver .. Bad Me!!! ) But this is something which Im working on right now..so I will keep up to my word :-)

Explanation about Chrome

From the start of this week, the talk of the town is Google Chrome ! :-) Chrome ..Chrome..... I can hardly find a blog which doesnt talk about it..

Im using it right at the moment.. Its beta....Cool..! I like it.. Bye byeee Mozila.. IE.. Had a good time with you :-) he he just kidding.. some times I need all of them..

BTW I love their presenation/explanation about Chrome.. Did you see that ?

http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/#

See how clearly and simply they explain techie things to normal web browsing people.. We can learn from that ..

The Program Management Office: Establishing, Managing And Growing the Value of a PMO

I always love the excitement of ordering books from amazon and waiting impatiently till they arrive at my door steps.. So I experienced it again . This time I bought the book "The Program Management Office: Establishing, Managing And Growing the Value of a PMO " Just glanced through the book and seems its interesting. Now the biggest challenge is to find the time to read it.. ! I will keep posting some of the important factors I learn from it..

Gold Plating.. Dos or Don'ts

I can remember in some of the articles I have read said that Gold plating is something which you should avoid in projects. (This is one of the PMP Exam question too I suppose). .. Whats gold plating ??? No its not painting your accessories in gold color… Its about adding something to the deliveries which is out of the agreed project scope. May be some nice to have or fancy feature you are excited about. .. ..

Why is it so bad?? Coz that addition can create so much of burden and it creates most the project problems at the time of project acceptance.. Believe me I have experienced that. Once when we got to develop a developer guideline., we thought… ah ..Adding a starter kit is really fine to this Then the developers (The customer in this project ) can start the project much more easily..(We PMs love to impress customers : ). Though I knew its called gold plating.. I agreed to have that feature as a value addition.. as it didn’t show much impact to my timelines and budgets. (Smart Idea by my techlead J )..

But proving the theory at last, delivering that addition added more burden to us as it kept on giving some problems with the development environment. But the customer didn’t want to loose it either after seen the thing and highly taken up with the thing..So we had to put some more effort to solve the issues and provide a working starter kit with project deliveries.

But I noticed the following article at http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/148954-2/14_common_project_management_mistakes.html

“Fumi Kondo, managing director of NYC-based consultancy Intellilink Solutions, once observed an exchange between a software developer and a project manager where the developer told the project manager that he could add extra features to an application with no additional effort. The project manager told the developer not to add the extra features because users hadn't asked for them. "My response would have been,'Go to the users and see if those features are useful,'" says Kondo. "I see nothing wrong with over-delivering if it doesn't impact the budget or the schedule."

Don’t you think PM is right in this case.. He or she must have seen some risk of adding this additional work out of the scope.. One of my other PM friend explained an incident how a simple “Export to Excel” feature added to his reporting module ( which customer has not asked in the scope ., but they have given the feature as they thought its useful) made so much of trouble to him at the time of project acceptance..

In general Customers are pleased when you do your delivery right.. Adding those extra thingies here and there can really kill the success of your project records.. but you may never know those will have a long time pay back.. However I see the truth of avoiding such gold plating…

I wonder where they are...

I don’t know whether to write this post or not. Whether to publish this in the blog or not. But Its quite sad situation about the Project Management resource problem in SL IT industry...

Lately I started hunting a very good Project manager from the industry. We thought the best way is to recruit somebody through recommendations. So with lots of enthusiasm we sent the message across. Within few days I got about 5 CVs. 2 CVs looked promising and called them for an interview immediately.

First candidate: A guy who has been working as a project manager for company “X” for years. He has been working for the same project over a period and most of his experience was related to handling maintenance work. Never practiced or heard of any PM methodologies but seems he is handling the current scope of work with no much issue. Never got exposed to Development projects and all the projects have been customization projects of 3^rd party product. When I threw few tricky questions about estimates…… I lost all my moral as he didn’t have a clue of project estimates. Always the estimates were done by somebody else and passed to him. Or estimates were never done. He didn’t even know how to defend himself from an unrealistic estimate. Overseas Projects – Never done..OK fine.. “over 7 years of Experience as a Project Manager” The expected salary hit the sealing…

Results –“OUT” -Who cares… Many more to interview and see..

Another– A Guy who has handled projects over 3 years.. Seems very enthusiastic.. Communication - Lot more to improve in order to do a project management role..He has been handling some outdated projects and he has got fed up of his work.. I asked a question..

Me : “How do you time estimate a project when you don’t know the technical side of the development work.. “

Interviewee : (was in deep thinking process… after few min…).” I ask the developers”

Me : Ok fine.. But they will think.. this guy don’t know anything about our work.. we will give him some false estimates and see.. Then what do you do? Do you just pass me the same estimate that you get from them?

Interviewee: NO I always take 80% of an estimate what developers give me.

Me : :-D (thinking….Hern protects the developers)

Results : Out !!!

Ok.. Cant wait anymore.. Called a reputed recruitment Agency.. Got 5 CVs.. All of them with MBAs, many years experience ….Works!! Very promising.. I called all..

1^st one.. Nerd.. No PM experience.. He has handled a team of 5 developers over 6 years.. He is not PM material Period!! He was talking about why SL IT is not moving towards Open source.. I was counting each min I spent.. still I couldn’t end the discussion. Then I told him.. Look., Your profile doesn’t match with the current opportunity I have ., when I have another I will call you.. Then he was telling me that he has a project in hand which he can give to the company if we recruit him.. It was hard for me to send him out…..Finally I said.. I have another meeting…

Next . Currently working as an IT manager.. No experience as a PM.. I don’t know how it was there in the CV. He has got exposed to the AS400 Development and gone overseas as an IT manager.. Not updated with technology or managing projects. He himself accepted the situation.

Next was a guy who is a developer.. Working as a team leader.. Like to move in to Project Management career .. It didn’t take much time for me to realize why he needs to move in to PM from development.. Oh boy he thought the PMs are paid well.. J When I first asked he said his passion is Project Management ., next time when I said we have 2 opportunities 1 is for PM and another is a Senior SE and we pay the same salary for both positions.. He asked me “In that case can I apply as a SSE in this company ..? “ Shew ….

Ok another.. Worked in a Gov Dept. Who handle some projects.. But not fit in to the Private sector Project management.. He told me that he thought the vacancy was for a BA. THANK YOU..

The Next .. Good guy.. Looks good .. Good PR.. good communication ..here we go

Me: Have you experienced any project failures

Interviewee: No I never fail I don’t like to fail

Me: Very good. So let me ask you this question.. Have you had any tight budgets for any projects?

Interviewee: Yes Once I had only 1 Million Budget and my detailed estimate gave me a project cost of 1.5 Million

Me: Interesting.. So what did you do?

Interviewee: Its not a problem to me.. I don’t plan any 8 hour schedules. I always plan 10 – 12 hour schedules. Then we can finish additional work with no cost. I think a developer can work till 11 PM with no issue.. Its an acceptable time for a software developer to work. Always my teams do that with no questions. Therefore I managed to finish the projects within the budgets allocated to me.

Grow up baby !!!

I dont know where those good PMs are gone.. Have they migrated..? Ofcourse few good PMs I knew have already migrated.. I think we are talking about very few PMs who are already working in few companies..

Whats next?.. Calling another recruitment agency…

PS: I thought of adding this line after receiving some comments about this post. This post doesnt mean to say there are no good Project Managers in Sri Lanka. When you look at Software industry, Some of the world's largest project such as huge stock exchange projects, Telco projects are outsourced to Sri Lanka and there are really good PMs managing those projects. What I see is currently there is a big vacuum in the market and this is only the interview experience

Frameworks

Have you ever got involved with documenting your development framework? or architectural framework of a system? I did.. Recently I got involved with a project and the project was all about documenting the development and architectural framework of a specific system.. Thanks to the consultant I worked with for that project, I learned ABC of Microsoft word :-)

Iterations and Iterations of reviews ..finally nice set of documentation came out!..

However I read this article today (sent to me by one of my colleagues ) it discuss why you should write a framework and why not.. Its quite interesting.. You can read the article here..

Why you should write frameworks

http://www.jaisenmathai.com/blog/2008/04/17/why-everyone-should-write-a-framework-and-never-use-it/

Why you shouldn’t write frameworks

http://jeffreypalermo.com/blog/i-ll-get-to-your-application-in-a-minute-first-we-need-to-build-the-framework/

My personal opinion is that spending time and writing a framework is important,

If you are a multinational company (or a company with many IT departments who produce their own applications) and if you need every entity to develop applications on certain terms and standards So that the whole organization can have one standard by standardizing the framework to be used. It assures easy maintenance of each system as anybody who learn the framework can attend to the system and find issues fix etc. with lesser time.

Or if you are producing a product to the market and if you plan many sales of this product and if it needs many people to do the enhancements and maintenance work, its very important that you have a framework written for the project.

Further if you are a Software Development company who develop many applications concurrently also can be benefited out of a framework.

But as far as this second article is concerned I totally agree that you need not to write a framework for a specific application to be delivered to a customer unless its really a deliverable of the project. I think the problem is with the project manager of this project. ( Fire the PM !! :-))) )

Effective Communication on Project Management

Project Management Institute – Colombo Chapter

Member Forum

PMI takes great pleasure in inviting you

for a presentation on

“Effective Communication

on Project Management”

by

Dr. Madhu Fernando

Venue:

Hotel Holiday Inn, Colombo

Persian Room

Date:

Thursday : 26^st June 2008

Time:

5.30pm – 7.30pm

Entrance fee for non PMICC members : Rs.1,000

OOOps .. If you know how much I love this saree

Do you think that Indian women gone mad? or Geeky... :-) ???

This is a pick from my favorite Satya Paul Designer collection.. I love this saree.. Hehe...

Material Looks fabulous.. and the color combination and the finishing looks great too.. Search result is everywhere :-)

Ok.. weeks after Im editing this post today.. Coz I saw the following...
Girls Love Google !!! :-)

'A Leader Should Know How to Manage Failure'

'A Leader Should Know How to Manage Failure'
(Former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam at Wharton India Economic forum , Philadelphia , March 22,2008 )
Question: Could you give an example, from your own experience, of how leaders should manage failure?
Kalam: Let me tell you about my experience. In 1973 I became the project director of India 's satellite launch vehicle program, commonly called the SLV-3. Our goal was to put India 's 'Rohini' satellite into orbit by 1980. I was given funds and human resources -- but was told clearly that by 1980 we had to launch the satellite into space. Thousands of people worked together in scientific and technical teams towards that goal.
By 1979 -- I think the month was August -- we thought we were ready. As the project director, I went to the control center for the launch. At four minutes before the satellite launch, the computer began to go through the checklist of items that needed to be checked. One minute later, the computer program put the launch on hold; the display showed that some control components were not in order. My experts -- I had four or five of them with me -- told me not to worry; they had done their calculations and there was enough reserve fuel. So I bypassed the computer, switched to manual mode, and launched the rocket. In the first stage, everything worked fine.. In the second stage, a problem developed. Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket system plunged into the Bay of Bengal . It was a big failure.
That day, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Prof. Satish Dhawan, had called a press conference. The launch was at 7:00 am , and the press conference -- where journalists from around the world were present -- was at 7:45 am at ISRO's satellite launch range in Sriharikota [in Andhra Pradesh in southern India ]. Prof. Dhawan, the leader of the organization, conducted the press conference himself. He took responsibility for the failure -- he said that the team had worked very hard, but that it needed more technological support. He assured the media that in another year, the team would definitely succeed. Now, I was the project director, and it was my failure, but instead, he took responsibility for the failure as chairman of the organization.
The next year, in July 1980, we tried again to launch the satellite -- and this time we succeeded.. The whole nation was jubilant. Again, there was a press conference. Prof. Dhawan called me aside and told me, 'You conduct the press conference today.'
I learned a very important lesson that day. When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team.

The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience.