Agile Estimation and Sizing Flashcards
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Read the first 7 Agile Estimation and Sizing flashcards as text
Which technique involves subject-matter experts independently submitting estimates, sharing rationale anonymously, and iterating until consensus is reached?
Answer: Wideband Delphi
Wideband Delphi uses anonymous expert estimates and structured discussion rounds to converge on a consensus estimate while minimizing social pressure and groupthink.
A product owner wants to split a large epic into smaller stories. Which split strategy ensures each resulting story still delivers independent business value?
Answer: Split by workflow step or user journey segment
Splitting by workflow step or user journey segment produces stories that each deliver a recognizable increment of value to the user, satisfying the 'V' in INVEST (Valuable).
During backlog refinement, a team consistently over-estimates complex stories. What agile practice would most help calibrate these estimates?
Answer: Reviewing actuals vs. estimates each sprint retrospective
Retrospective comparison of estimated vs. actual story points gives teams empirical data to recalibrate their sizing intuition over time.
What does it mean when a team's velocity is highly variable (e.g., 15, 40, 22, 38 points across sprints)?
Answer: There may be inconsistent story sizing, scope changes, or external interruptions affecting the team
High velocity variance typically signals inconsistent estimation practices, scope changes mid-sprint, impediments, or team instability that should be addressed in retrospectives.
Which of the following is an example of a 'spike' in agile, and how does it relate to estimation?
Answer: A spike is a time-boxed research task used to reduce uncertainty before estimating a story
A spike is a short, time-boxed investigation or prototype whose outcome provides the information needed to estimate or implement a story that was previously too uncertain.
How does the INVEST acronym guide teams when writing and sizing user stories? What does the 'E' stand for?
Answer: Estimable
The 'E' in INVEST stands for Estimable, meaning the story must be clear enough for the team to size it; stories that cannot be estimated are typically too vague or too large.
A new agile team just formed and has no historical velocity. Which approach is recommended to set an initial sprint capacity?
Answer: Select a few stories, break them into tasks, and estimate hours to derive an initial capacity
For teams without velocity history, decomposing stories into tasks and summing estimated hours provides a grounded starting capacity until empirical velocity data accumulates.