Sprint 0

“How much is this going to cost?” - “As much as you're willing to spend.”
“How long is this going to take?” - “As long as it necessary.”
“What am I going to get?” - “Whatever you tell us you want.”

These are the common questions that get asked at the beginning of any project. “Pure” agile has minimal constraints beyond the customers imagination. The high-level scope that is defined at the beginning of a project can be changed out of all recognition as the customer evolves the product backlog between iterations.

One of the biggest aspects of any project is estimating how much time a given task, and in combination the whole project will take to develop. Scrum provides a mechanism for estimating work, but converting them into duration can be very difficult. This post will discuss my experience in managing large projects, and the estimation mechanism I have developed, based on story points, to cater for these situations.

There are 4 factors that are considered to accurately estimate duration. Work estimate, staff overhead, client overhead, estimate accuracy.