Today, I want to chat about a common issue in Agile development – story point estimation. You see, it's easy to get caught up in estimating how long a feature will take to develop and forget about the crucial Quality Assurance (QA) effort.
It happens to often: your team is in the middle of sprint planning. New user stories are being discussed, and estimations are given, but there's a catch. You've estimated the development time perfectly, but you've barely even glanced at how much effort QA will take. Why? Agile talks about Development Team and you mistakenly thought that it is all about DEVELOPMENT. Sound familiar? Trust me; it's a more common scenario than you might think.
So, what's the big deal? Well, when you leave QA effort out of the equation, several not-so-great things can happen:
Vilocity can suffer: You might think you can squeeze more into a sprint than is humanly possible, setting your team up for disappointment and overcommitment.
Quality can decrease: Rushed testing often leads to missed bugs and defects, which can come back to haunt you in the form of unhappy customers or late nights fixing issues.
Burnout can occur: Developers and QA folks can face undue pressure to meet unrealistic deadlines, causing stress and burnout.
But what can be done to improve the situation? Here are some ideas from personal experience:
Each group has a say: Tweak your planning poker sessions. To use separate cards for development and testing when they estimate. This simple twist will make a world of difference in ensuring both aspects are considered.
Sit together through estimation: no matter if its virtually or physically but make sure each estimation session has both your star developer and your QA expert when they decide to sit down together during estimation sessions. Magically, they will start to see eye to eye and could provide more accurate estimates that covered both development and testing effort.
Redefining "Definition of Done": new "Definition of Done" needs to include nit just development but testing, documentation, and everything in between. Suddenly, everyone will know what is expected, and your estimations will became more realistic.
Breaking It Down: When it comes, and it always does, this monster of a user story that always gets the team sweating during estimation meetings. Go for it, split it into smaller, digestible chunks. This will make it easier to see how much time you will need for both development and QA. No more guessing games!
Learning from the Past: Look at your treasure trove of historical data on past stories. Dig into that goldmine during estimations, comparing how long it took your team to develop and test similar features in the past. It's like having a cheat sheet for better estimations.
Retrospectives there for a reason: Teach your team embrace retrospectives because that's where they can openly discuss what went well and what didn't in the process. That way you can constantly learn and fine-tuning the process to improve, and make sure everyone work is accounted for.
Remember, Agile works best when the whole team work together, and that includes both developers and QA folks. By including testing in the estimations, we not only make our sprints smoother but also keep our product quality top-notch and our team members happy and sane.
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