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1500 questions
164
votes
19 answers
Why use story points instead of hours for estimating?
After using hours to estimate our projects for a long time and rarely coming within 20% of actual "work-to-ship," I have been told by a handful of people that "points" work a lot better at gauging the complexity and estimated length of tasks within…
chrishomer
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116
votes
14 answers
How to Avoid Micro-Managing a Software Development Team?
I've managed a few projects over the last few years, and one of the biggest challenges I face is avoiding becoming a micro-manager. I worked with a team once where I worked with a group of software engineers, and I was in the PM role.
When I…
jmort253
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102
votes
10 answers
How to estimate amount of work/man hours for an unfamiliar task?
Sooner or later we come across a task in our project, with which we are totally unfamiliar ('we' as in PM, but also possibly the staff assigned to do this particular task).
How can we estimate amount of time/work/resources needed to complete such a…
Mchl
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97
votes
11 answers
Why would teams use the Fibonacci sequence for story points?
Why do some teams use numbers from the Fibonacci sequence as story points? Is it just a preference, or is there something more to it?
feketegy
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86
votes
7 answers
What is the weighting difference between Epic/Story/Task
I am slightly confused between the three.
From my understanding:
Epic - Create a web site (T shirt size) (L)
Story - Create the Home page (1 point)
Task - Create a button on the home page that is red (1 hour)
Is this and the weighting correct?
bobo2000
- 3,892
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81
votes
11 answers
Why can't the ScrumMaster and the project manager be the same person?
How a ScrumMaster does compare to a traditional project manager, and can either role coincide with the role of product manager or project sponsor / project owner?
andy
- 819
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77
votes
14 answers
When to Use Waterfall, When to Use Scrum ?
Where I lecture, I was always taught to use waterfall to manage projects, but when I finished college, waterfall wasn't the only method that can be used for project management, and I am very interested in Scrum.
My question: when (for what kind of…
Eko Kurniawan Khannedy
- 1,123
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75
votes
23 answers
How technical should a Project Manager be?
Consider a software project involving a bunch of developers of mixed experience. The PM has the delivery responsibility for the project, but undertakes this through the team members.
When the developers give an estimate for a technical task, how…
Raghuram
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72
votes
5 answers
Is Scrum a status report meeting or a developer meeting?
I'm a developer and we started using Agile last year (October 2011). And, it has been rough to say the least. I was always taught Scrum was to discuss the following:
What you did yesterday
What you are going to do today
Any issues, challenges or…
Prisoner ZERO
- 823
- 8
- 8
70
votes
10 answers
Minimum Project Management Practices for One-Man Software Projects
I've worked a lot on projects by myself -- "one man" projects. These are typically small projects in the software domain. Many of them have no customers other than myself (who actually use the end product); some have other users.
The question that…
ashes999
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67
votes
8 answers
How to deal with unavoidable on-demand tasks in Scrum? Or should we even try?
I was put in charge of implementing Scrum in my Development Team. Unfortunately, the company I work with has a rather stale structure that does not go well with this framework. The team works on a project that several other teams use/depend on.…
Lafsi Ironknuckles
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64
votes
18 answers
What are the biggest mistakes that new project managers make?
Getting started in the role of project manager is not always easy. Are there some common mistakes that you see newer project managers making that can be avoided (e.g. trying to take on too much themselves, or allowing problems to linger too long…
Steven
- 293
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61
votes
19 answers
Is it sound project management practice to make software engineers fix bugs "off the clock"?
I work in a largish, multi-team software development shop that builds a vertical B2B solution suite for a highly regulated domain. We are trying to become more Agile; we are iterating better than we have in the past, but there is still a lot of…
Larry Domonico
- 611
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60
votes
7 answers
Why aren't you supposed to report status in standups?
My team has a new scrum master. The old SM always said that standups were about coordination between the team members and not a report to him. Urging us to help each other if one of us ran into difficulties, to break work items up into smaller…
adam brown
- 701
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55
votes
12 answers
Why are developers expected to estimate tasks at all?
This management tendency is the worst part of being a developer. Software development is not carpentry. Almost everything a developer writes is unique, they have never built that particular thing before. We are not cabinet makers repeating a…
Scott Bishop
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