Podcast appearances and mentions of neil killick

What do you think about today's podcast?Neil Killick, a trailblazing Agile Coach, trainer, and Consultant with a knack for challenging the status quo. Neil brings with him a wealth of experience and expertise, and today, we're diving headfirst into the fascinating realm of the NoEstimates movement.Where to find Neil:Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilkillick/Email: neil2killick@gmail.comtwitter: @neil_killickSubscribe to his blog here: https://www.neilkillick.com/blogGet ready to buckle up for a rollercoaster ride of insights, revelations, and thought-provoking discussions as we explore the implications of NoEstimates in the Agile space. From breaking free of traditional estimation practices to unlocking the true potential of Agile delivery, Neil is here to shake things up and ignite your passion for innovation.Support the Show.Support the show via Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/TheAgileMatrixPodcastExplore our website to discover our comprehensive course and training schedule.https://www.agilematrix.orgInterested in Agile themed Shirts? Check out our store:https://www.etsy.com/shop/TemmieDesigns?ref=search_shop_redirect

Ryan and Todd suggest various techniques for slicing stories in software development, including breaking down acceptance criteria and slicing by persona, data, workflow, features, business rules, and interfaces. He recommends starting with Neil Killick's work on value-focused slicing and mentions a future slicing class. ⏩ Check out Neil's video here: https://youtu.be/TJ2aS80OTKg ⏩ Take a Story Slicing class here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/agileforhumansllc/838570 ⏩ Join Ryan and Todd for a Scrum.org course: https://buytickets.at/agileforhumansllc Todd and Ryan also co-authored a book - Fixing Your Scrum: Practical Solutions to Common Scrum Problems.

We are launching a new video series about Agile Coaching. Every week, Ryan Ripley, Todd Miller, and guest agile coaches will discuss how to effectively work with teams and coach them to greater levels of success. Today's Topic: Demonstrating the Value of an Agile Coach and Scrum Master with Neil Killick Links:https://www.neilkillick.com/https://gojko.net/2012/01/23/splitting-user-stories-the-hamburger-method/ Let us know what you think about this episode in the comments. Leave your questions and don't forget to smash that LIKE and SUBSCRIBE button. Buy Fixing Your Scrum: Practical Solutions to Common Scrum Problems - https://amzn.to/3fMpH5a Join Ryan and Todd in a Professional Scrum Master course: https://www.scrum.org/agile-humans And make sure you subscribe to the channel! DISCLAIMER: Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide, I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge for you! Thank you for supporting the channel so we can continue to provide you with free content each week! FTC DISCLAIMER: This video is not sponsored by anyone. Sharing Scrum knowledge to help you grow as a Scrum Practitioner and to solve complex problems. #scrum #agile #scrummasterSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We are launching a new video series about Agile Coaching. Every week, Ryan Ripley, Todd Miller, and guest agile coaches will discuss how to effectively work with teams and coach them to greater levels of success. Today's Topic: The 3 Levels of User Story Slicing with Neil Killick Links:https://www.neilkillick.com/https://gojko.net/2012/01/23/splitting-user-stories-the-hamburger-method/ Let us know what you think about this episode in the comments. Leave your questions and don't forget to smash that LIKE and SUBSCRIBE button. Buy Fixing Your Scrum: Practical Solutions to Common Scrum Problems - https://amzn.to/3fMpH5a Join Ryan and Todd in a Professional Scrum Master course: https://www.scrum.org/agile-humans And make sure you subscribe to the channel! DISCLAIMER: Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide, I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge for you! Thank you for supporting the channel so we can continue to provide you with free content each week! FTC DISCLAIMER: This video is not sponsored by anyone. Sharing Scrum knowledge to help you grow as a Scrum Practitioner and to solve complex problems. #scrum #agile #scrummasterSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

GUEST BIO: My guest on today’s show is a world-class software practitioner and business coach, consultant, and trainer.   He is an author, keynote speaker and a globally recognized expert in software development and delivery improvement, particularly using Agile, Scrum and other Lean-Agile thinking and approaches.   EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s IT Career Energizer podcast is Neil Killick. He is a Len/Agile software product development practitioner, who also coaches. Over the years, he had used Lean, Agile and Scrum working methods in most of his roles. Currently, he is working as a consultant with a focus on digital business and UX analysis. He works to foster great team practices and deliver software flawlessly. Neil is also an experienced keynote speaker. He has delivered talks at Agile events, across the world. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (1.10) – Can you please tell us about your involvement and focus on Agile, Scrum and so forth. How did you get into that? Right from the start of his programming career, Neil had naturally worked in a way that fitted in with Agile. So, when 15 years into his career he came across Agile principles adopting them was really easy for him. His interest in Agile coincided with him taking on a programming role in a Scrum team. So his interest in Agile and Scrum started around the same time. (2.35) - So do you see yourself as a bit of an evangelist when it comes to Agile and Scrum and Lean and so forth? At the start, that was probably the case. Naturally, Neil still writes about those topics and gets quite heavily involved in problem-solving for practitioners. Today, he is more of an advocate than an evangelist for those working methods.  (3.52) – When we were chatting earlier you also mentioned, it's about the outcome as much as anything else. Neil agrees that is true. He started his IT career with IBM, which meant that, right from the start, he was used to solving problems for customers. Neil has never simply implemented what was passed down the chain. He has always tried to first fully understand the problem his customer is trying to solve. When he started working in the IT industry programmers were expected to analyze the problem and come up with the solution before sitting down and starting to program. Ironically, the rise of Agile has resulted in developers being kept apart from customers. Business analysts look at the issue then tell the programmer what is needed. (4.56) – Can you please share a unique career tip with the I.T. career audience? Neil’s advice is to experience as many ways of working, languages, and platforms as possible. You have to grow to stay relevant when working in the IT industry. He has moved around a lot in his career. The maximum time he has spent working anywhere is about 3 1/2 years. This approach has ensured he is always learning and never gets bored. His advice is for others to do the same. Or, if they do want to stay with a single company to step up and take on other roles. Simply, drifting along, doing the same thing is not going to be good for your career. Periodically, you need to pause, think about what you are doing and change things up as soon as your career starts to stall. That can easily happen without your realizing it. Often, it is not because of laziness on your part. Sometimes the needs of the business nudge you into this situation. Either way, it does not matter. You need to get out of that rut and keep on learning. (9.11) – Can you tell us about your worst career moment? And what you learned from that experience. Over the decades, Neil has worked in all sorts of businesses, including quite a few startups. For the most part, this has worked out well for him. But, he did make a serious mistake, at one point in his career and ended up working for a firm that lacked direction. They spent a lot of money on hiring the very best developers but kept on switching focus. As a result, Neil and his team would frequently be part way through a project only to be told to throw it all away and start again. This way of working was frustrating for everyone. Inevitably, it ended up creating a toxic work environment. The developers ended up never actually producing anything. This was because the leadership kept canceling things. But, somehow that was forgotten and the development teams started to be seen in a negative light. To solve the perceived “problem” a team of traditional project managers was bought in. Ten minutes into the first hands-on meeting, the Agile way of working was scrapped. Worse than that, the decision had clearly been made before the first meeting was held. Within a few minutes of the start of the meeting a Word document was produced which said in the first paragraph, Agile working was a waste of time. They moved to a task-oriented working method. This turned some team members into product owners. While some became testers and the rest wrote the code. Effectively the cross-functional team they once were was broken down into silos. Suddenly, they were people who worked independently of each other. They no longer had an overview of the entire project. Inevitably, they ended up butting heads rather than working as a cohesive whole, so productivity suffered even more. Fairly quickly, the firm stopped paying superannuation. Not long after that, salary payments stopped too. Yet, they were still hiring new personnel. Initially, they paid those new workers. All firms and projects have their ups and downs. But, for Neil, that situation was the worst experience of his career. If something similar were to happen now, Neil would be able to see it coming and move on before things got too bad. But, at the time, he was relatively young and new to the industry. These days, he can tell when management is hiding things from their workforce. So, can easily work out when it is time to move on. (15.16) – What was your best career moment? Neil has been working in the IT industry for 23 years and has been lucky enough to have quite a few great experiences. But, his favorite moment was when, in the early 2000s, he was part of a team that delivered one of the earliest viable trip planners. One that took into account traffic flows to provide accurate journey estimation times. He really enjoyed the field work. Getting out there to test routes to work out what data was relevant when working out trip times was fascinating. Many of the standards they came up with are still used today. Neil enjoyed the work and working with people who were smarter than him. It felt great to have complete autonomy and to be left to solve the problems as they saw fit. Without a work environment like that, they would not have been able to innovate as much as they did.  (19.02) – Can you tell us what excites you about the future of the IT industry and careers? The fact that there are so many different roles available is what excites Neil the most about the IT industry. Technology now touches every part of every business. IT techs are no longer the weird geeks that work in the back office. They are there at the forefront of the business, working as part of every internal team. Nowadays, you learn about how the business works. You are no longer confined to sitting in the corner programming. It is a change that is also opening up the world of IT to more people. The industry is recognizing that diverse development teams make sense. So, men, women, young, old and people from all cultures are all valued and sought out by the industry. (22.55) – What drew you to a career in IT? When he was a kid, his dad bought Neil a BBC Microcomputer. He soon became proficient enough in BBC BASIC to write a snooker program. So, for Neil, pursuing a career in IT was a natural progression. It enabled him to follow his childhood passion. (23.52) – What is the best career advice you have ever received? Neil says that when he became a program manager, a friend of his warned him not to accept too many meeting invites. He explained to Neil that he would be bombarded with invites, but, should resist the temptation to do what most people did and say yes to them all. It was vital that he made doing his job a priority. Neil has worked for dozens of firms and is surprised by how often attending meeting after meeting is worn as a badge of honor. It is not an efficient way of working. If you are in meetings most of the day, doing your job properly is impossible.  (25.45) – If you were to begin your IT career again, right now, what would you do? Neil explains that he would follow the advice that he gives to graduates and people who are looking for internships. People who are at that stage of their careers need to take on roles that expose them to as many experiences as possible. Once they start work, they need to identify people whose work you can follow and learn from. That does not necessarily mean sitting down and formally asking them to be your mentor. You just need to take an interest in what they are doing, how they work and ask plenty of questions to be able to learn from them. It is also important to get on with things and actually do the work. Doing is the only effective way to learn. You have to accept and be ready for the fact that, at first, you are going to suck at it. Mistakes are an inevitable part of the learning process. It is very important to accept that and not let it put you off. Failing or doing things badly, initially, is part of everyone’s growth journey. (30.22) – What is the number one non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Being empathetic is vital when you work in IT. Empathy enables you to put yourself into the shoes of the people you are working with and for. This is vital for success. Taking this approach ensures that you are giving people what they really need instead of simply following a set of instructions. You are constantly thinking about the impact what you are doing is having on your end customers. Empathy makes you a better colleague and manager. It enables you to create a work environment that is conducive to success. When you are empathetic with your workforce it ensures that you never push them too hard. That, in turn, means that everyone can work to the best of their ability and consistently produce exceptional results. Everyone can develop the skill of empathy. Neil believes humility is a useful skill to have too. But, he realizes that this is more of a personality trait than anything. So, developing it is not something everyone can do as easily as they can with empathy, (32.06) – Phil asks Neil to share a final piece of career advice with the audience. Neil says that you need to be humble about what we know. It is all too easy to see yourself as an expert in something and end up dismissing other people’s view on things as a result. We all have a tendency to evangelize and try to change people’s minds to better fit in with our way of thinking and doing things. In the past, Neil has made this mistake. He, like many in the Agile community, has tended to think that if people are not working in the Agile way they are not working efficiently. Today, he realizes that thinking like that is not productive. Now, he is careful to sit down with an open mind, learn about how others work, so, he can see the merits and understand their approach. Looking at things in this way enables him to quickly identify how he can help to improve things. Those potential changes and improvements can then be discussed in a respectful way. Neil is very careful not to try to push people into working the way he does. He guides instead of simply telling. BEST MOMENTS: (3.47) NEIL – "I'm a big advocate of Agile thinking, Agile mindset and Agile ways of working." (6.29) NEIL – "Just immerse yourself in as many experiences as you can, in your career" (7.42) NEIL – "Keep looking and keep striving for growth." (17.46) NEIL – "Surround yourself by people who are smarter than you, because that's how you grow and learn new things." (25.26) NEIL – "Only accept meeting invites if it's very clear what the purpose is, and it's actually going to be a value add for them and for you." (26.45) NEIL – "The only way that we can get experiences in things is to actually just go and do it." (31.15) NEIL – "We need to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of other people in every aspect of our work." (35.23) NEIL – “Nowadays, the best traits are humility and empathy, because we are working with people. We are no longer just the geeks in the corner," CONTACT NEIL: Twitter: https://twitter.com/neil_killick LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilkillick/ Website: https://www.neilkillick.com/

If Agile is so great, what in the world is going on that many people can’t stand the thought of it? Is there a root cause? One of our leaders, Heidi Araya, wrote a great blog called, “A Dilemma of Our Time – Achieving Business Agility” and yes, it is a dilemma most likely caused by 2 decades of paradigm shift into the future of management and leadership in a rapidly changing world. This does not excuse Agile for getting a bad rap. We must be open to explore why we got here and what we can do about it. And… that is what we intend to do. You are in for another 2 part podcast that is sure to help open your mind. 00:17 – Show introduction 03:15 – Show opening 04:20 – A powerful reading of a statement from Neil Killick about Agile 07:50 – Meet our other CAJ leader, Mark Cruth 09:05 – Anarchy over Agility – Agile is really becoming a problem 10:59 – Entirely writing of the entire concept of Agile, due to bad experience 13:40 – We start exploring by “Starting with Why” 14:47 – Does the one-size-fits-all mentality bring Agile to its knees? 15:42 – People lack understanding, don’t know “why they should be” 16:51 – Expectation of maximum return for most minimum input 18:26 – Doing Agile, process for sake of forced process – not a real commitment 19:96 – A bad fad diet it has become 20:55 – Failure modes defined a decade ago, still relevant today 22:04 – Companies using this to lure in top talent wanting to work this way 23:45 – If you only partially invest, it won’t make anything healthy 24:48 – Teaser where we will dive into What we can do to make positive change 25:21 – Closing out of the show A Dilemma of Our Time, blog by Heidi Araya: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dilemma-our-time-achieving-business-agility-heidi-araya/   Neil Killick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilkillick   Jean Tabaka’s 12 Agile Adoption Failure Modes https://thisagileguy.com/12-agile-adoption-failure-modes-by-jean-tabaka/   The Backwards Bike; “Knowledge does not equal understanding” https://youtu.be/MFzDaBzBlL0   “Why developers consider Agile development to be nonsense” blog by: Kevin W. https://medium.com/@web.development/why-developers-consider-agile-development-to-be-nonsense-1eaf28715e66  

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: James Shore This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to James Shore about his background, how he got into programming, pitfalls that happened along the way, and his Agile story. James Shore is a thought leader in the Agile software development community. He was an early adopter of Agile development and he continues to lead, teach, write, and consult on Agile development processes. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: James Shore’s background: Consultant, practitioner, and coauthor of “The Art of Agile.” How did you get into programming? Began an interest at 15 years old. How did you go from hobbyist to a professional? Modem background. FidoNet Software and technical design to the agile field. Agile field & development Waterfall Rational Rose “UML Distilled” by Martin Fowler “Java Modeling in Color with UML” by Peter Coad WikiWikiWeb A lot of time we don’t look for these solutions unless we go through the pain. This is so true. In many ways the best learning comes through failure. Design standards. JavaScript If you see a different style – and you can’t get past X, Y, Z – that’s a real sign of immaturity. See past the different styles and find what you could “steal.” Intellectual laziness. Human condition is to not feel inferior. Of course, not every idea is good, but try and see what is the root.  What do you feel like you’ve contributed to the programming industry? And much more! Links: James Shore’s LinkedIn James Shore’s Website James Shore’s Twitter James Shore’s GitHub James Shore’s Book, “The Art of Agile Development...” FreshBooks FidoNet Waterfall Rational Rose “UML Distilled” by Martin Fowler “Java Modeling in Color with UML” by Peter Coad WikiWikiWeb Digital Ocean, LLC JavaScript CacheFly Sponsor: Digital Ocean, LLC Picks: Charles Ready Player One – Movie NG Conf Interviews James Neil Killick Vihart – Mathematics Videos

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: James Shore This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to James Shore about his background, how he got into programming, pitfalls that happened along the way, and his Agile story. James Shore is a thought leader in the Agile software development community. He was an early adopter of Agile development and he continues to lead, teach, write, and consult on Agile development processes. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: James Shore’s background: Consultant, practitioner, and coauthor of “The Art of Agile.” How did you get into programming? Began an interest at 15 years old. How did you go from hobbyist to a professional? Modem background. FidoNet Software and technical design to the agile field. Agile field & development Waterfall Rational Rose “UML Distilled” by Martin Fowler “Java Modeling in Color with UML” by Peter Coad WikiWikiWeb A lot of time we don’t look for these solutions unless we go through the pain. This is so true. In many ways the best learning comes through failure. Design standards. JavaScript If you see a different style – and you can’t get past X, Y, Z – that’s a real sign of immaturity. See past the different styles and find what you could “steal.” Intellectual laziness. Human condition is to not feel inferior. Of course, not every idea is good, but try and see what is the root.  What do you feel like you’ve contributed to the programming industry? And much more! Links: James Shore’s LinkedIn James Shore’s Website James Shore’s Twitter James Shore’s GitHub James Shore’s Book, “The Art of Agile Development...” FreshBooks FidoNet Waterfall Rational Rose “UML Distilled” by Martin Fowler “Java Modeling in Color with UML” by Peter Coad WikiWikiWeb Digital Ocean, LLC JavaScript CacheFly Sponsor: Digital Ocean, LLC Picks: Charles Ready Player One – Movie NG Conf Interviews James Neil Killick Vihart – Mathematics Videos

Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: James Shore This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to James Shore about his background, how he got into programming, pitfalls that happened along the way, and his Agile story. James Shore is a thought leader in the Agile software development community. He was an early adopter of Agile development and he continues to lead, teach, write, and consult on Agile development processes. In particular, we dive pretty deep on: James Shore’s background: Consultant, practitioner, and coauthor of “The Art of Agile.” How did you get into programming? Began an interest at 15 years old. How did you go from hobbyist to a professional? Modem background. FidoNet Software and technical design to the agile field. Agile field & development Waterfall Rational Rose “UML Distilled” by Martin Fowler “Java Modeling in Color with UML” by Peter Coad WikiWikiWeb A lot of time we don’t look for these solutions unless we go through the pain. This is so true. In many ways the best learning comes through failure. Design standards. JavaScript If you see a different style – and you can’t get past X, Y, Z – that’s a real sign of immaturity. See past the different styles and find what you could “steal.” Intellectual laziness. Human condition is to not feel inferior. Of course, not every idea is good, but try and see what is the root.  What do you feel like you’ve contributed to the programming industry? And much more! Links: James Shore’s LinkedIn James Shore’s Website James Shore’s Twitter James Shore’s GitHub James Shore’s Book, “The Art of Agile Development...” FreshBooks FidoNet Waterfall Rational Rose “UML Distilled” by Martin Fowler “Java Modeling in Color with UML” by Peter Coad WikiWikiWeb Digital Ocean, LLC JavaScript CacheFly Sponsor: Digital Ocean, LLC Picks: Charles Ready Player One – Movie NG Conf Interviews James Neil Killick Vihart – Mathematics Videos

Recorded on-stage at Øredev 2017, Fredrik talks to NASA software lead Kurt Leucht about developing software where there is actual rocket science going on and people are actually being sent into space. While there is indeed a lot of careful process and planning where necessary, NASA is a much more varied software development environment than you might expect. Links Kurt Leucht Writing apps For Mars! - full video of Kurt's presentation at Øredev Apollo 13 The swarmie robots The swarmies in action JPLThe power of 10 The JPL coding standard All videos from Øredev Neil Killick's estimation talk. We talked to Neil in episode 16 Pioneering Mars! - full video of Kurt's keynote at Øredev Under utveckling is a podcast by and for developers, created in sunny (cough) Gothenburg by us at TimeEdit. We would love your feedback on the topics we discuss! We are on Twitter as uupodden and at Facebook as Under utveckling. If you enjoy the podcast we'd love a rating and review in iTunes!

Fredrik talks to Neil Killick about being agile and spreading agile thinking, especially within larger organizations. Defining what you mean with the term is just the beginning of the challenges. At the same time, when seen from a different perspective, it is much too easy to drill down into worrying about definitions and following things to the letter. We start with a good coffee and cover a lot of ground on the people side of software, from Srcum as intended to the horrible strawman called waterfall. Feedback is always welcome, in fact this episode is all thanks to suggestions and connections provided by mattias on Twitter. Thanks, and keep it coming! Links Lilla kafferosteriet - where we recorded and had coffee Neil on Twitter Neil's blog Agile Smalltalk #noestimates](https://ronjeffries.com/xprog/articles/the-noestimates-movement/">Vasco Duarte No estimates - Vasco's book Story points YAGNI - You aren't gonna need it Øredev How to not shoot yourself in the foot with estimation - Neil's talk Episode 14 (in Swedish) was the talk with Viktor Sarström about culture Scrum Sprint review Under utveckling is a podcast by and for developers, created in sunny (cough) Gothenburg by us at TimeEdit. We would love your feedback on the topics we discuss! We are on Twitter as uupodden and at Facebook as Under utveckling. If you enjoy the podcast we'd love a rating and review in iTunes!

Neil Killick (@neil_killick) joined me (@RyanRipley) to discuss a wide variety of agile ideas including: “Shu-Ha-Ri”, Agile Management, #NoEstimates, and when software is “done”. [featured-image single_newwindow=”false”]Neil Killick Presenting #NoEstimates[/featured-image] Neil is a software delivery coach and manager with experience shipping software in various capacities, domains, and industries. He is one of the key pioneers of #NoEstimates and seeks better ways to slice work, collaborate with stakeholder, and deliver value frequently. Neil blogs at here and is a must read for agile-minded thinkers and experimenters. In this episode you'll discover: Agile as a mindset vs Agile as a set of tools and processes What is “shu-ha-ri” and does it make sense in an agile context? Why #NoEstimates is an important concept that moves agile thinking forward Links from the show: Learn more about Neil at neilkillick.com Neil’s slicking heuristic explained! #NoEstimates isn’t just about estimating [callout]We’re losing tens of billions of dollars a year on broken software, and great new ideas such as agile development and Scrum don’t always pay off. But there’s hope. The nine software development practices in Beyond Legacy Code are designed to solve the problems facing our industry. Discover why these practices work, not just how they work, and dramatically increase the quality and maintainability of any software project. Click here to purchase on Amazon.[/callout] [reminder]What are your thoughts on #NoEstimates? Please share your ideas below.[/reminder] Want to hear another podcast about the life of an agile coach? — Listen to my conversation with Zach Bonaker, Diane Zajac-Woodie, and Amitai Schlair on episode 39. We discuss growing an agile practice and how coaches help create the environments where agile ideas can flourish. One tiny favor.  — Please take 30 seconds now and leave a review on iTunes. This helps others learn about the show and grows our audience. It will help the show tremendously, including my ability to bring on more great guests for all of us to learn from. Thanks! This podcast is brought to you by Audible. I have used Audible for years, and I love audio books. I have three to recommend: Agile and Lean Program Management by Johanna Rothman Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland The Lean Startup by Eric Ries All you need to do to get your free 30-day Audible trial is go to Audibletrial.com/agile. Choose one of the above books, or choose between more than 180,000 audio programs. It's that easy. Go to Audibletrial.com/agile and get started today. Enjoy! The post AFH 050: Agile Ideas with Neil Killick [PODCAST] appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode Adam talks to Woody Zuill about software project estimation. They talk about the #NoEstimates hash tag, and what it means and where it came from. They also talk about ways to manage software projects without worrying about estimation, and alternative ways to make the decisions that estimates are usually used for. This episode is brought to you by Laracasts. Woody's #NoEstimates blog posts "What price estimation?" by Neil Killick "What is software design?" by Jack Reeves The Mob Programming Conference MobProgramming.org Sponsored by Laracasts

Hosts Ryan Ripley, George Dinwiddie, Neil Killick, JB Rainsberger Discussion #NoEstimates means many different things to many different people. The group defined #NoEstimates as a conversation around when estimates are appropriate and to which level of precision teams should target. We noted that the hashtag can lead to more “heat than light”, but also acknowledged that a rich conversation has formed around the questions that #NoEstimates poses. We moved on to discussing estimates being useful at a portfolio level for deciding which projects to do and to forecast budgets. To some this did not go far enough and we continued to highlight other benefits of estimating such as: Conversations that occur when estimating Shared understand of programming activities Enabling decision making at the executive level Validating project/program/product assumptions Indication of possible issues when reality and the estimate do not match When discussing when estimates are needed, there are no stock answers. George highlighted the need to meet the expressed needs of those seeking estimates. Once that is understood, we can determine an appropriate level of precision and act accordingly. JB cautioned against the mindless use of estimates, but everyone agreed that estimates created with a goal of “making good decisions” are useful. We turned to real world examples where burn-up charts are used to estimate the delivery of programs. This revealed some important considerations about estimates like the need to build uncertainty in to your estimates, while removing inappropriate levels of precision. We also covered situations with mandates and fixed dates where estimates may not be as critical as focusing on delivering the software frequently. Part of improving estimates requires improving software engineering practices. If the team can deliver consistently sprint over the sprint, the creation of estimates can move be performed by the stakeholders. While this type of improvement is difficult, George reminded us that focusing on the little things can have a great impact of making delivery more predictable. To wrap up, we circled back to the idea that we should focus on meeting needs. This aligns well with “individuals and interactions over process and tools”, but is also more difficult to do. Exploring how to meet needs requires soft skills, trust, and good relationships to succeed. Resources, Plugs, and More Ryan – http://agileanswerman.com #NoEstimates Does Not Stop Agile Metric Abuse The Product Owner Says #NoEstimates. Now What? Woody Zuill’s Blog George – http://blog.gdinwiddie.com/ Estimation as Hypothesis George’s post on Estimation Neil – http://neilkillick.com/ Interview about #NoEstimates with Chris Chapman and Neil The Requestimator’s Intent Babies, Bathwater, and #NoEstimates JB – http://www.jbrains.ca/ One Practical Alternative to Estimates The Trouble with #NoEstimates Those #NoEstimate People! The post AFH 005: A Panel Discussion on #NoEstimates [PODCAST] appeared first on Ryan Ripley.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tony and Kim Ballestrin have a chat with Neil Killick whilst at Agile Australia 2013 in Sydney and talk about: The origins of the #NOestimates hashtag Agile with a small ‘a’ – going for agility and not a process Neil’s journey into Agile The link between health and the values & principles of Agile The manifesto Embracing … Continue reading →