CAD Agile Planning and Estimation Questions and Answers — Questions and Answers
Question 1: An Agile team needs to create a high-level forecast for a large number of unrefined product backlog items for an upcoming quarterly planning event. The goal is to get a quick, coarse-grained understanding of the effort involved without detailed analysis. Which estimation technique is MOST appropriate for this situation?
- Ideal Days
- T-shirt Sizing (XS, S, M, L, XL) (Correct answer)
- Planning Poker
- Burndown Chart Analysis
Correct answer: T-shirt Sizing (XS, S, M, L, XL)
T-shirt Sizing is an effective technique for quick, high-level, relative estimation when precision is not required. [8, 11, 12] It's ideal for large backlogs or early-stage planning (like roadmaps or quarterly plans) where the goal is to group items by relative size rather than assign detailed points. [8] Planning Poker is more granular and time-consuming, Ideal Days provides an absolute time estimate that is often less accurate early on, and Burndown Chart Analysis is a tracking metric, not a forward-looking estimation technique.
Question 2: A development team has completed four sprints with the following story point totals: 25, 28, 22, and 25. What is the team's calculated velocity, and what is its primary purpose in Agile planning?
- 100 points, used to measure the total value delivered to the customer.
- 25 points per sprint, used to compare the team's performance against other teams.
- 28 points per sprint, used as a performance target for the next sprint.
- 25 points per sprint, used to forecast how much work the team can likely complete in future sprints. (Correct answer)
Correct answer: 25 points per sprint, used to forecast how much work the team can likely complete in future sprints.
Velocity is the average amount of work a team completes in a sprint, measured in story points or other units. [1, 4] The average of (25 + 28 + 22 + 25) / 4 is 25. Its primary purpose is as a planning and forecasting tool to help the team predict how many backlog items they can realistically take on in upcoming sprints. [1, 2, 3] It is not meant for comparing teams or as a strict performance target to be exceeded. [2]
Question 3: During a Sprint Planning meeting, the Product Owner presents the highest priority items from the Product Backlog. What is the primary responsibility of the developers on the team at this stage?
- To accept the work from the previous sprint and demonstrate it to stakeholders.
- To select the amount of work they believe they can complete and create a plan to deliver it. (Correct answer)
- To create the high-level product roadmap for the next three to six months.
- To re-prioritize the Product Backlog based on technical feasibility.
Correct answer: To select the amount of work they believe they can complete and create a plan to deliver it.
In Sprint Planning, after the Product Owner explains the sprint goal and candidate backlog items, the developers are responsible for forecasting how many of those items they can turn into a completed increment. [24, 28] They select the work and create their own plan, the Sprint Backlog, for how they will accomplish it. [28] Demonstrating work occurs at the Sprint Review, creating a roadmap is a longer-term activity, and prioritizing the Product Backlog is the Product Owner's responsibility.
Question 4: A Product Owner has written the following user story: "As a system administrator, I want the system to be fast, so that I can perform my tasks efficiently." From a developer's perspective, this story is difficult to estimate. Which quality of the INVEST criteria for good user stories is most clearly violated?
- Negotiable
- Valuable
- Testable (Correct answer)
- Independent
Correct answer: Testable
The INVEST mnemonic helps create effective user stories. In this case, the word 'fast' is subjective and lacks specific, measurable criteria. [14] This makes the story non-testable, as there is no objective way to determine if the acceptance criteria have been met. A better story would define 'fast' with concrete numbers, such as "page loads in under 2 seconds." While it might also violate the 'Estimable' criterion, the root cause of the estimation difficulty is the lack of testability. [6, 15]
Question 5: The 'Cone of Uncertainty' is a concept that illustrates a key principle of Agile planning and estimation. What does this concept primarily demonstrate?
- A team's velocity must increase over the course of a project.
- Estimates become more accurate as a project progresses and more is known. (Correct answer)
- The project scope must be fixed at the beginning to allow for accurate estimates.
- Relative estimation is always four times less accurate than time-based estimation.
Correct answer: Estimates become more accurate as a project progresses and more is known.
The Cone of Uncertainty shows that at the beginning of a project, when knowledge is limited, estimates have a wide range of variability and are inherently inaccurate. [9, 10] As the team builds the product, resolves questions, and gains empirical data, the uncertainty decreases, and the accuracy of estimates for the remaining work improves. [9, 20] Agile embraces this by using iterative development to narrow the cone over time. [19]
Question 6: Which of the following is a primary advantage of using a relative estimation technique like Story Points instead of a time-based estimation technique like ideal hours?
- Story Points provide a precise delivery date to stakeholders at the beginning of the project.
- Story Points are directly convertible to a fixed number of hours, making them easy for managers to understand.
- Story Points abstract the estimate to include complexity, risk, and effort, which fosters consensus and avoids issues with varying skill levels. (Correct answer)
- Story Points eliminate the need to break down large features into smaller user stories.
Correct answer: Story Points abstract the estimate to include complexity, risk, and effort, which fosters consensus and avoids issues with varying skill levels.
Story points are a relative measure of effort that intentionally combines factors like complexity, uncertainty (risk), and the amount of work to be done. [23, 29] This abstraction helps the team reach a consensus on the 'size' of a work item without getting bogged down in how many hours it would take a specific person to complete it, thus accounting for different skill levels and avoiding emotional attachment to deadlines. [27, 29]
CAD Agile Planning and Estimation Questions and Answers
An Agile team needs to create a high-level forecast for a large number of unrefined product backlog items for an upcoming quarterly planning event.
The goal is to get a quick, coarse-grained understanding of the effort involved without detailed analysis.
Which estimation technique is MOST appropriate for this situation?