Hi...your videos are some of the most explicit and detailed videos I have come across! So clear and straight to the point. Great job you have done. You also won a subscriber !
I love these videos. I just became a scrum master and have no training. I'm using these to gain my understanding of the role and how to navigate through jira.
Hello, Richard. Can you create one video about story points and how to calculate them?. I think this is a very important topic to improve the team's overall performance. Your solutions are the best 👍 .
Hi @mehdirahimi1787, not sure if you've already seen it, but if you're still interested we now have a video on Story Points :) Here's the link ruclips.net/video/QUo5l4wwmzk/видео.html
@@oluwafemionatolu1286 Hey Oluwafemi, thanks for the question and I apologise for the delay in response! We can't give an exact date, but since we've had a few requests we'll bump it up in priority
I really love your videos, wish you can upload often especially the jira tutorials. You explain so well. Please can you upload a video on estimation, my team is struggling with this. Thank you Richard 😊
Hi @healthywithbenna hope you are well! :) Just letting you know we now have a series on estimation. If you haven't seen it already the first video can be found here ruclips.net/video/QUo5l4wwmzk/видео.html
Hi Thuy, sorry about the late reply. Thanks for your feedback and we are aiming to publish the video on Relative Estimation soon. Will keep you posted :)
Hi @queenamedome, sorry for the delay - we have now created a series on Relative Estimation and the first video covers Story Points. Just in case you're still interested, here's the link: ruclips.net/video/QUo5l4wwmzk/видео.html
Hi Richard! Thank you so much for this video. Do you typically assign backlog items to individual team members? How do you decide on who to assign them to considering that a backlog item might require input from more than one development team member?
Hi Nnennaya, good question. I usually start with not assigning the Product Backlog items but ensuring the team agrees on who’s doing what at Sprint Planning, and staying in sync with one another at the Daily Scrum. That being said, I have encountered teams where the work is highly complex and needed someone overseeing the end to end delivery of a Product Backlog item. In this case I have the team assign a ‘Lead’ to each Product Backlog item who is assigned to the item and will focus on making sure the Definition of Done (DoD) is met. This may involve chasing up team members etc When it comes to deciding who plays the ‘Lead’, I let the team decide. It can be a different person depending on the Product Backlog item. I hope that helps, but please let me know if you have more questions :)
Nice video. I usually find time based estimations a bit easier. Sometime the dev team may have 3 of 4 developers but only 1 tester. In this case tshirt sizing of small, medium, large etc is tricky considering a story might have an enormous testing effort than development. Would be great if we can have a video for above kind of scenario.
Thank you for this useful vid. but i have question - if you use 3 recent sprint complteted point to calculate velocity so in those first 3 sprint, how can you estimate number of point you tend to finish in a sprint??
Hi Dzung, good question. When a team uses Velocity for Sprint Planning, the first Sprint is typically a best guess and then readjusted after each Sprint. Alternatively, I like to use sub-tasks and time which is what I go through in part 3 of this video series :)
This is a great video! However, help me understand Richard, I have 6 team members, and from above example if I have a velocity of 21 with around 5 user stories being taken, how do I know which team member is working on what User story?, Do we further add subtasks? Ex for US "Login to account" , when there is UI, API and backend changes involved, how do we further divide this 8 story pointing between 3 members? Thanks in advance
Hi @CuriousScrummer, my apologies on the delayed reply. Yes that’s correct, use sub-tasks to distribute the tasks for a User Story among your team members. You can see how I do that in the next video (“part 3”) of this series.
Hello, brother awesome video again, please I want to know what must be contained in the report that is sent to stakeholders is it just sprint report or is any other report added to it. Secondly I want to know all the parties that the report is sent to apart from the stakeholders. I mean do we send to the dev team and the P O?
Hi Samuel, great questions! I have videos coming up to answer those exact questions :) so I’m going to leave you in suspense for now, but more info is coming
Hi Richard, your video is very informative. Hope you can help with this thought here.... Lets assume if I am using Velocity planning, with average velocity is 20 and has the same consistent team size (5) i.e developers 3 and 2 QA's in a two week sprint cadence. Please advise on any guidelines or how would you negate or bring down story points if a developer is on vacation lets say 5 days of a sprint? Thank you so much.
Hi Mahavir, my apologies on the delay in reply, and thanks for your question. In those situations where someone is away what I like to do is ask the team to look at a couple of previous Sprints and simulate what would have been achieved if the person was away during those Sprints. For example, if the developer is going to be away for 5 days, I'll look at the past Sprint or two and ask the team what would have been achieved if that same developer was away for 5 days during those previous Sprints. The team will quickly identify the Product Backlog Items that wouldn't have been achievable - from there we can look at what the Velocity would have been. E.g. instead of achieving 20 points, it may have only been 15. That then gives the team an idea of what they might be able to achieve in the upcoming Sprint. Does that make sense? if not, let me know and I can clarify. In any case I hope it helps and thank you for watching!
@@AxisAgileApps Thank you so much Richard. Great video's, just subscribed to your channel. Also do you have any email that I could write to for any questions. Also can you advise : 1) Any suggestions for career path for Scrum Master? 2) What certifications will be great addition to do for future career prospective growth. Thank you once again, very much appreciated 👍.
@@mahavirjain5029 Hi Mahavir, certainly, you can reach me at richard@axisagile.com. In terms of career path, it depends on what you would like to pursue. In most cases, Scrum Masters move towards the role of Agile Coach/Trainer or more senior leadership positions within an organisation. For certifications, take a look at the Scrum Master certification track offered by the Scrum Alliance: www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified
Hi Richard can please create videos for relative estimation, responsibilities of scrum master and what all required functionalities of JIRA are important for scrum master along with this please help with using Confulence
Hi Rudransh, we are currently publishing videos related to Relative Estimation. You can find the playlist here: ruclips.net/p/PLL-72IrJnz2w_8JyHQVlWSw2w3eP9tL76 We have more videos coming for Scrum Masters, but in the mean time you can also check out our playlist on Jira and Confluence: ruclips.net/p/PLL-72IrJnz2wb4nO1UqoPxxgfQ3U0IOfp Hope it helps!
Hi, thanks for a great video. How do you embed tests within a sprint? Do you use a workflow in which a task is being placed in the "testing" column? Do you take tests into consideration when estimating time for each task?
Hi Kamilki, thanks for watching and good questions! The most common way to embed testing and visualising it within Jira is to add a "testing" column to the Active Sprint Board, and an additional state in the workflow. Alternatively you can also use sub-tasks. If you haven't seen it yet, we just published a video on it here: ruclips.net/video/94sqZadKOFI/видео.html With regards to estimating the amount of effort a Product Backlog Item will take, yes, testing should be included. Hope it helps, and let me know if you have any other questions :) Richard
Hi Sudakshina, sorry for the delayed reply. When calculating Velocity I typically only include the Story Points of completed stories. So for example, if the team has an 8 point Story, but it is half done at the end of the Sprint, I don't split it in half. Instead they will receive the full 8 points in the Sprint within which it is completed. This will motivate your team to finish User Stories, rather than have them carry over. This will mean that the Velocity will go up and down, but remember we use the team's "Average" velocity from the last 3 Sprints (at least), which will mean these fluctuations have minimal impact. Hope that helps, and let me know if you have any other questions :) Richard
Hey Richard, your videos are great. I found your YT page few minutes ago. I just passed my Scrum Master Exam I am hoping to get job soon. Do you have any tips that can be useful for someone like me? Thank You!
Thanks Modupe and congratulations on passing your Scrum Master Exam! The certification will prove to future employees that you have the knowledge, and my advice would be to highlight your Scrum Master related experience /achievements on your resume as that's what they will be looking for next. It's also very important to tailor the resume to the job you're applying for. Hope it helps, and I'll have move videos coming your way to help you on your Scrum Master journey :) All the best! Richard
Can you please explain if the breaking down bigger work items/epics to stories and task should happen before the sprint planning session, ie. within product backlog by PMs?
Hi Javid, yes breaking down bigger work items/epics should occur before Sprint Planning as part of "Product Backlog Refinement" sessions. This is typically done by the Product Owner, but they might be supported by the delivery team to decide on what's the best way to split the work item. Hope it helps and if you need further details let me know :)
Hey Richard :) what are your thoughts on sprint carryovers? Do you re-estimate the PBIs that were not complete or do you keep the original estimates even if they may be close to finished?
Hi Bruno, sorry about the late reply. Good question. With Sprint carry overs the team will need to re-estimate what proportion of those points remain so that they can determine an appropriate Sprint Plan. For example, if the team had a 13 pointer which was close to done, we would need to see how many points they feel remains, otherwise they will under-forecast in the Sprint they bring that remaining work into.
Hi @thomasmathew6790, if you're still interested here is the first video in our series on Relative Estimation: ruclips.net/video/QUo5l4wwmzk/видео.html thanks again and hope you're well!
Considering the dependencies and risks at this point would sure alter the story point estimations, right? How do you incorporate that into the planning?
Hi there, firstly my apologies on the delay in reply. When it comes to dependencies, it depends on what type of dependency it is: - For dependencies between Product Backlog items, the team will typically discuss what they are at Sprint Planning and then sequence the Product Backlog items to take the dependencies into account. They may find that they can only take in a certain number of Story Points based on this. - For dependencies that are outside of the teams control, such as another team needs to provide some detail or information, then those should ideally be resolved before the Sprint Planning session via Product Backlog refinement workshops. With regards to risks, ideally this is taken into account as part of the Story Point estimation. For more information on this you can checkout my video on Planning Poker: ruclips.net/video/3apRqd67hrQ/видео.htmlfeature=shared&t=482 Hope it helps, and let me know if you need me to clarify further. Thanks! Richard
@@AxisAgileAppsHi Richard, thanks this really clears things up! I have my next Sprint Review today and Planning session is tomorrow. So far we have always estimated point during planning due to my confusion over the question above! But it is a long and tedious process. This time we refined the backlog in advance over several sessions and it was a lot better. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and giving my such inspiration!
Hello, Richard. Thanks for the video. What about the situation (very common in Ukraine), when team consists of QCs, frontend engineers, and backend engineers. So, generated SP doesn't not answeres the question - whether we are fine to move forward with particular amount of SPs, even though it correlates well with team velocity. So, in such cases, we used the approach of estimating in SP separately - FE, BE and QC. But truly speaking, in such cases, I would rather use time-based estimation and refuse from SP. Does it make sense?
Hi Natalia, good question. Yes in those cases, I typically recommend using sub-tasks with time-based estimation. So there would be sub-tasks for QC, frontend and backend work which are all linked to the one Product Backlog item. You can see how I do this in part 3 of this video series. If you haven't seen it yet, here's the link to the video: ruclips.net/video/94sqZadKOFI/видео.html Let me know if I can be of any more help, and thanks for watching! :) Richard
Hey @collreyno, hope you're well! If you're still interested in estimating, you can checkout our series on Relative Estimation. First video is here: ruclips.net/video/QUo5l4wwmzk/видео.html thanks!
Hi @mvsprasanna2656, sorry for the late reply. Unfortunately Jira does not provide the ability to track capacity to spare. I like to use a spreadsheet which you will find in the next video on Sprint Planning: ruclips.net/video/94sqZadKOFI/видео.html The spreadsheet uses time and sub-tasks, but you could follow a similar approach with Velocity. Hope it helps, and thanks so much for watching :) - Richard
@axisagileapps - At 7:00 min. into the video - you mention that PTO/Holidays/Etc. can impact the team size and we need to adjust points for that. Can you please elaborate on the correct way to do that? I am having a major problem in my team right now with disagreements on how to properly calculate and adjust for this. As well as knowing that each previous sprint that we are using for average velocity would have included some resources with time off. Therefore none of the previous sprints are at 100% team size the entire sprint. We were taking the average (say 50 points over last 5 sprints) and we were multiplying by the current sprint team capacity (say 85%) to get our points goal for the sprint = 50*.85= 42.5 points. But the team felt that this would continually decrease our sprint points estimate over time because the velocity we are using for the average is not 100% capacity. So we are essentially taking a reduced capacity velocity over 5 sprints, and reducing the average further each new sprint. So now they want to take each sprint - figure out what the completed points would have been if the team had been at 100% capacity, and then multiple the average of that by the new sprint capacity. For example: spr1: 56/.85=65.8 (this would be the number of points we would have completed at 100% capacity). It's getting really cumbersome to do this and I wanted to know if there is a better way.
Hi Catie, Unfortunately this is where using Velocity for Sprint Planning can be challenging. If your team wants to continue doing so, I would let them use their new calculation (56/0.85=65.8) for a single Sprint with the team at full capacity, and then re-adjust the average based on what they actually achieve at the end of the Sprint. E.g. after completing the Sprint at full capacity they might find they can achieve more or less than 65.8. Alternatively, you can switch to using a time-based approach for Sprint Planning which deals with these types of scenarios more elegantly. If you haven't watch my video on this topic you can see it here: ruclips.net/video/94sqZadKOFI/видео.html Hope it helps, and let me know if you there's anything else I can help with :) Richard
I want to know based on what to add story points to each story or task n sub-task, am really confused regarding this point, according to what exactly to set this number of story points
Hi Mohamed, our suggestion is to only use Story Points on your Product Backlog Items. I.e. Story, Task and bug issue types. If you use sub-tasks, my preference is to use time, and you'll see how I do that in Part 3 of the Sprint Planning videos series :)
Hi @MrFarooqueazam, if you're still interested in Relative Estimation you can watch our first video cover this topic here: ruclips.net/video/QUo5l4wwmzk/видео.html thanks!
buddy, just want to understand in product backlog as you push stories to main sprint at bottom sum of story points appears, how did you do that.kindly let me know
Hi Emmanuel, great question. It's the responsibility of the Scrum Master to make sure these details are added at the right time, but they may not necessarily be the one who inputs the details. For example, a Scrum Master will typically coach a Product Owner on how to maintain the Product Backlog, and ensure descriptions, Story Points etc have been updated in time for an upcoming Sprint Planning session. So in that case, the Product Owner would have entered the details, but the Scrum Master took responsibility of making sure that the process was well understood and followed. I hope that makes sense, but if not let me know and i can provide more examples. Thanks, Richard
Hi, your videos are good and effective, but it obviously requires some simple examples as you describe, without examples it is not very clear to understand , thanks
Please correct the following understanding: 1. Product Backlog is created by the PO and the SM 2. Product refinement is performed by PO,SM & team (may include subject matter experts etc) this includes story estimates (hrs or story points etc), priority and sufficient detail - DEEP 3. Sprint Planning by SM & team based on hrs or velocity Questions: Q1. The video does not talk about how much time these items take - should we create a Sprint 0 to do this or should it be included in the Sprint 1 timeline? Q2. What happens to an in completed story within a sprint Q2.1 do you only add Story points to the sprint of completed stories or completed tasks within a story (does Jiri account for task estimates?) Q2.2 do the remaining tasks move back to the product backlog?
Hey Rakesh, for Q1 you'll find my response to your comment on our Product Backlog Video (ruclips.net/video/hUhSpY1W6nk/видео.html&lc=Ugz5bLGkxheS3vZysoF4AaABAg.9kHaSpXQJhv9kjI7x4RaG2). Please see remaining answers below: Q2. Technically incomplete Stories should go back into the Product Backlog and reprioritised by the PO. While most PO's will typically just push them to the subsequent Sprint this should not be an assumption made by the team/SM. Q2.1 I like to only award Story Points for completed stories. I.e. the Sprint velocity is the summation of all the Product Backlog Items that meet the team's Definition of Done (DoD). This will encourage the team to focus on completing the User Stories within a Sprint. Q2.2 Yes, the team should make sure they have tracked what tasks for the User Stories are complete, and what still needs to be done. I like to do this using sub-tasks, but it could also be done within the description field. Hope it helps, and let me know if you need me to clarify anything. Thanks again! Richard
Hi Victor, if you are after our video on Relative Estimation, you can check out our video series here: ruclips.net/p/PLL-72IrJnz2w_8JyHQVlWSw2w3eP9tL76 Thanks!
Hi @querubindemayo3474, if you're still interested you can find our first video on Relative Estimation here: ruclips.net/video/QUo5l4wwmzk/видео.html thanks!
Hi...your videos are some of the most explicit and detailed videos I have come across! So clear and straight to the point. Great job you have done. You also won a subscriber !
Thanks Temitope!
I love these videos. I just became a scrum master and have no training. I'm using these to gain my understanding of the role and how to navigate through jira.
Thanks so much!! and i'm really glad they are helping :)
Richard
You are Awesome.
Simple Explanation.
Thank you Amy!
Another sensational instructional video, Richard. Thank you! 🙏🏻🙏🏻
Thanks Jaslyn!! :)
You have a great way of explanning , Thankyou Richard !
Thanks Sindhu! :D
Just learning about Srum Master and Jira - found this channel and it is just great! thanks Richard
Thanks Vince! Plenty more to come :D
Fantastic stuff
Thanks Dandi!!
Hello, Richard. Can you create one video about story points and how to calculate them?.
I think this is a very important topic to improve the team's overall performance.
Your solutions are the best 👍 .
Thanks again Mehdi! We have it on the video backlog :)
Hi @mehdirahimi1787, not sure if you've already seen it, but if you're still interested we now have a video on Story Points :) Here's the link ruclips.net/video/QUo5l4wwmzk/видео.html
Thank you so much for this inspirational explicit video
Most welcome 😊
You are providing valuable content. Thank you richard.
It's a pleasure @mvsprasanna2656! And thanks for your feedback, it makes it all worth it :)
Great input. Looking forward for the next video. Keep it up!!!
Thanks Gaurav! It’s coming soon :)
Many thanks for sharing your knowledge 😊
Thanks @anandanm2336! It's our pleasure :)
Hi Richard, Thanks for the quality content. Please give us more.
Thanks Ehsan, we have plenty more coming :)
Please create a video on relative estimation. Thanks for the videos you posted. They are all helpful and insightful.
Thanks Babajide! Will do :)
Is the video up?
@@MJ-ut9gp Sorry M J, we haven't created a video on Relative Estimation yet. Will keep you posted.
@@AxisAgileApps How soon can we get the video on Relative Estimation?
@@oluwafemionatolu1286 Hey Oluwafemi, thanks for the question and I apologise for the delay in response! We can't give an exact date, but since we've had a few requests we'll bump it up in priority
Great going, I am getting few good insights through that series.
Great to hear! thanks for the feedback Sajal :)
I really love your videos, wish you can upload often especially the jira tutorials. You explain so well. Please can you upload a video on estimation, my team is struggling with this. Thank you Richard 😊
Thanks Benna! More is on the way :)
Hi @healthywithbenna hope you are well! :) Just letting you know we now have a series on estimation. If you haven't seen it already the first video can be found here ruclips.net/video/QUo5l4wwmzk/видео.html
@@AxisAgileApps wonderful! I'll check that out😊
Super helpful video!😀
Thanks @scoogsy, glad it was helpful! :)
great video! you just gained a new subscriber
Thanks Glen!
Hi Richard! Very useful videos. I am looking forward to your video abt velocity - related estimation? Thanks.
Hi Thuy, sorry about the late reply. Thanks for your feedback and we are aiming to publish the video on Relative Estimation soon. Will keep you posted :)
thankyou really helpful lesson
Our pleasure!
very nice explanation, keep it up !
Thanks Houcem!!
Thank you for one more nice video.
Thanks Coolreyno! We have another scheduled for next week :)
Perfect Video
Thanks Arash!
Yes please create the video on story point values.
Thanks Queen, will do! :)
Hi @queenamedome, sorry for the delay - we have now created a series on Relative Estimation and the first video covers Story Points. Just in case you're still interested, here's the link: ruclips.net/video/QUo5l4wwmzk/видео.html
Hey Richard, Your videos are awesome. Can we have a video with the most commonly asked interview questions for scrum master
?
Hi @keerthi486, thanks! Really appreciate the positive feedback. And good suggestion, I'll add that one to our Video Backlog.
Hi Richard!
Thank you so much for this video. Do you typically assign backlog items to individual team members? How do you decide on who to assign them to considering that a backlog item might require input from more than one development team member?
Hi Nnennaya, good question. I usually start with not assigning the Product Backlog items but ensuring the team agrees on who’s doing what at Sprint Planning, and staying in sync with one another at the Daily Scrum.
That being said, I have encountered teams where the work is highly complex and needed someone overseeing the end to end delivery of a Product Backlog item. In this case I have the team assign a ‘Lead’ to each Product Backlog item who is assigned to the item and will focus on making sure the Definition of Done (DoD) is met. This may involve chasing up team members etc
When it comes to deciding who plays the ‘Lead’, I let the team decide. It can be a different person depending on the Product Backlog item.
I hope that helps, but please let me know if you have more questions :)
Nice video. I usually find time based estimations a bit easier. Sometime the dev team may have 3 of 4 developers but only 1 tester. In this case tshirt sizing of small, medium, large etc is tricky considering a story might have an enormous testing effort than development. Would be great if we can have a video for above kind of scenario.
Hi Sukdeep! Thanks for the feedback. Our next video on time based estimation during Sprint Planning is coming soon :)
Hi Sukhdeep, just letting you know the next video covering a time-based approach has just been published :) ruclips.net/video/94sqZadKOFI/видео.html
Thank you for this useful vid.
but i have question - if you use 3 recent sprint complteted point to calculate velocity so in those first 3 sprint, how can you estimate number of point you tend to finish in a sprint??
Hi Dzung, good question. When a team uses Velocity for Sprint Planning, the first Sprint is typically a best guess and then readjusted after each Sprint. Alternatively, I like to use sub-tasks and time which is what I go through in part 3 of this video series :)
This is a great video! However, help me understand Richard, I have 6 team members, and from above example if I have a velocity of 21 with around 5 user stories being taken, how do I know which team member is working on what User story?, Do we further add subtasks? Ex for US "Login to account" , when there is UI, API and backend changes involved, how do we further divide this 8 story pointing between 3 members? Thanks in advance
Hi @CuriousScrummer, my apologies on the delayed reply. Yes that’s correct, use sub-tasks to distribute the tasks for a User Story among your team members. You can see how I do that in the next video (“part 3”) of this series.
Hello, brother awesome video again, please I want to know what must be contained in the report that is sent to stakeholders is it just sprint report or is any other report added to it. Secondly I want to know all the parties that the report is sent to apart from the stakeholders. I mean do we send to the dev team and the P O?
Hi Samuel, great questions! I have videos coming up to answer those exact questions :) so I’m going to leave you in suspense for now, but more info is coming
Hi Richard, could you please find create a video about how to utilize the various reports to improve sprints?
Sure, that’s definitely on the video backlog and will be coming soon :)
Hi Richard, your video is very informative. Hope you can help with this thought here....
Lets assume if I am using Velocity planning, with average velocity is 20 and has the same consistent team size (5) i.e developers 3 and 2 QA's in a two week sprint cadence. Please advise on any guidelines or how would you negate or bring down story points if a developer is on vacation lets say 5 days of a sprint? Thank you so much.
Hi Mahavir, my apologies on the delay in reply, and thanks for your question. In those situations where someone is away what I like to do is ask the team to look at a couple of previous Sprints and simulate what would have been achieved if the person was away during those Sprints.
For example, if the developer is going to be away for 5 days, I'll look at the past Sprint or two and ask the team what would have been achieved if that same developer was away for 5 days during those previous Sprints. The team will quickly identify the Product Backlog Items that wouldn't have been achievable - from there we can look at what the Velocity would have been. E.g. instead of achieving 20 points, it may have only been 15. That then gives the team an idea of what they might be able to achieve in the upcoming Sprint.
Does that make sense? if not, let me know and I can clarify. In any case I hope it helps and thank you for watching!
@@AxisAgileApps Thank you so much Richard. Great video's, just subscribed to your channel. Also do you have any email that I could write to for any questions.
Also can you advise :
1) Any suggestions for career path for Scrum Master?
2) What certifications will be great addition to do for future career prospective growth.
Thank you once again, very much appreciated 👍.
@@mahavirjain5029 Hi Mahavir, certainly, you can reach me at richard@axisagile.com. In terms of career path, it depends on what you would like to pursue. In most cases, Scrum Masters move towards the role of Agile Coach/Trainer or more senior leadership positions within an organisation.
For certifications, take a look at the Scrum Master certification track offered by the Scrum Alliance:
www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified
Hi Richard can please create videos for relative estimation, responsibilities of scrum master and what all required functionalities of JIRA are important for scrum master along with this please help with using Confulence
Hi Rudransh, we are currently publishing videos related to Relative Estimation. You can find the playlist here: ruclips.net/p/PLL-72IrJnz2w_8JyHQVlWSw2w3eP9tL76
We have more videos coming for Scrum Masters, but in the mean time you can also check out our playlist on Jira and Confluence:
ruclips.net/p/PLL-72IrJnz2wb4nO1UqoPxxgfQ3U0IOfp
Hope it helps!
Hi, thanks for a great video. How do you embed tests within a sprint? Do you use a workflow in which a task is being placed in the "testing" column? Do you take tests into consideration when estimating time for each task?
Hi Kamilki, thanks for watching and good questions! The most common way to embed testing and visualising it within Jira is to add a "testing" column to the Active Sprint Board, and an additional state in the workflow. Alternatively you can also use sub-tasks. If you haven't seen it yet, we just published a video on it here: ruclips.net/video/94sqZadKOFI/видео.html
With regards to estimating the amount of effort a Product Backlog Item will take, yes, testing should be included.
Hope it helps, and let me know if you have any other questions :)
Richard
Hi, when calculating velocity, how to consider spill over stories? should we consider partly done stories in capacity?
Hi Sudakshina, sorry for the delayed reply. When calculating Velocity I typically only include the Story Points of completed stories.
So for example, if the team has an 8 point Story, but it is half done at the end of the Sprint, I don't split it in half. Instead they will receive the full 8 points in the Sprint within which it is completed. This will motivate your team to finish User Stories, rather than have them carry over.
This will mean that the Velocity will go up and down, but remember we use the team's "Average" velocity from the last 3 Sprints (at least), which will mean these fluctuations have minimal impact.
Hope that helps, and let me know if you have any other questions :)
Richard
Hey Richard, your videos are great. I found your YT page few minutes ago. I just passed my Scrum Master Exam I am hoping to get job soon. Do you have any tips that can be useful for someone like me? Thank You!
Thanks Modupe and congratulations on passing your Scrum Master Exam! The certification will prove to future employees that you have the knowledge, and my advice would be to highlight your Scrum Master related experience /achievements on your resume as that's what they will be looking for next. It's also very important to tailor the resume to the job you're applying for.
Hope it helps, and I'll have move videos coming your way to help you on your Scrum Master journey :)
All the best!
Richard
@@AxisAgileApps Thank you so much.
@@modupejohnson14 Our pleasure! :)
Can you please explain if the breaking down bigger work items/epics to stories and task should happen before the sprint planning session, ie. within product backlog by PMs?
Hi Javid, yes breaking down bigger work items/epics should occur before Sprint Planning as part of "Product Backlog Refinement" sessions. This is typically done by the Product Owner, but they might be supported by the delivery team to decide on what's the best way to split the work item. Hope it helps and if you need further details let me know :)
Please make video on estimation plan
Hey Salman, take a look at our playlist here: ruclips.net/p/PLL-72IrJnz2w_8JyHQVlWSw2w3eP9tL76
Hope it helps!
Hey Richard :) what are your thoughts on sprint carryovers? Do you re-estimate the PBIs that were not complete or do you keep the original estimates even if they may be close to finished?
Hi Bruno, sorry about the late reply. Good question. With Sprint carry overs the team will need to re-estimate what proportion of those points remain so that they can determine an appropriate Sprint Plan. For example, if the team had a 13 pointer which was close to done, we would need to see how many points they feel remains, otherwise they will under-forecast in the Sprint they bring that remaining work into.
Thank you for this great video. Can you please make a video about relative estimation?
Thanks Thomas! We’ve had a few requests for that one and we’ve added it to our Video Backlog :)
Hi @thomasmathew6790, if you're still interested here is the first video in our series on Relative Estimation: ruclips.net/video/QUo5l4wwmzk/видео.html thanks again and hope you're well!
PLease create a video on creating sprint plan in JIRA ( maybe ) using Confluence
Hi Rudransh, thanks for the request! We will add it to our Video Backlog :)
Considering the dependencies and risks at this point would sure alter the story point estimations, right? How do you incorporate that into the planning?
Hi there, firstly my apologies on the delay in reply. When it comes to dependencies, it depends on what type of dependency it is:
- For dependencies between Product Backlog items, the team will typically discuss what they are at Sprint Planning and then sequence the Product Backlog items to take the dependencies into account. They may find that they can only take in a certain number of Story Points based on this.
- For dependencies that are outside of the teams control, such as another team needs to provide some detail or information, then those should ideally be resolved before the Sprint Planning session via Product Backlog refinement workshops.
With regards to risks, ideally this is taken into account as part of the Story Point estimation. For more information on this you can checkout my video on Planning Poker: ruclips.net/video/3apRqd67hrQ/видео.htmlfeature=shared&t=482
Hope it helps, and let me know if you need me to clarify further.
Thanks!
Richard
@@AxisAgileAppsHi Richard, thanks this really clears things up! I have my next Sprint Review today and Planning session is tomorrow. So far we have always estimated point during planning due to my confusion over the question above! But it is a long and tedious process. This time we refined the backlog in advance over several sessions and it was a lot better.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and giving my such inspiration!
@@wordforever117 Our pleasure! :)
Hello, Richard. Thanks for the video. What about the situation (very common in Ukraine), when team consists of QCs, frontend engineers, and backend engineers. So, generated SP doesn't not answeres the question - whether we are fine to move forward with particular amount of SPs, even though it correlates well with team velocity.
So, in such cases, we used the approach of estimating in SP separately - FE, BE and QC. But truly speaking, in such cases, I would rather use time-based estimation and refuse from SP. Does it make sense?
Hi Natalia, good question. Yes in those cases, I typically recommend using sub-tasks with time-based estimation. So there would be sub-tasks for QC, frontend and backend work which are all linked to the one Product Backlog item. You can see how I do this in part 3 of this video series. If you haven't seen it yet, here's the link to the video: ruclips.net/video/94sqZadKOFI/видео.html
Let me know if I can be of any more help, and thanks for watching! :)
Richard
@@AxisAgileApps , thanks a lot!
Please consider making videos on estimating
Hi Coolreyno! Thanks for asking. It’s definitely on our Video Backlog :)
Hey @collreyno, hope you're well! If you're still interested in estimating, you can checkout our series on Relative Estimation. First video is here: ruclips.net/video/QUo5l4wwmzk/видео.html thanks!
Hi Richard, Can we track the capacity to spare in jira? To show that to management if needed so that nobody questions us.
Hi @mvsprasanna2656, sorry for the late reply. Unfortunately Jira does not provide the ability to track capacity to spare. I like to use a spreadsheet which you will find in the next video on Sprint Planning: ruclips.net/video/94sqZadKOFI/видео.html
The spreadsheet uses time and sub-tasks, but you could follow a similar approach with Velocity.
Hope it helps, and thanks so much for watching :)
- Richard
@mvsprasanna2656 We can help with this at minware !
@axisagileapps - At 7:00 min. into the video - you mention that PTO/Holidays/Etc. can impact the team size and we need to adjust points for that. Can you please elaborate on the correct way to do that? I am having a major problem in my team right now with disagreements on how to properly calculate and adjust for this. As well as knowing that each previous sprint that we are using for average velocity would have included some resources with time off. Therefore none of the previous sprints are at 100% team size the entire sprint. We were taking the average (say 50 points over last 5 sprints) and we were multiplying by the current sprint team capacity (say 85%) to get our points goal for the sprint = 50*.85= 42.5 points. But the team felt that this would continually decrease our sprint points estimate over time because the velocity we are using for the average is not 100% capacity. So we are essentially taking a reduced capacity velocity over 5 sprints, and reducing the average further each new sprint. So now they want to take each sprint - figure out what the completed points would have been if the team had been at 100% capacity, and then multiple the average of that by the new sprint capacity. For example: spr1: 56/.85=65.8 (this would be the number of points we would have completed at 100% capacity). It's getting really cumbersome to do this and I wanted to know if there is a better way.
Hi Catie,
Unfortunately this is where using Velocity for Sprint Planning can be challenging. If your team wants to continue doing so, I would let them use their new calculation (56/0.85=65.8) for a single Sprint with the team at full capacity, and then re-adjust the average based on what they actually achieve at the end of the Sprint. E.g. after completing the Sprint at full capacity they might find they can achieve more or less than 65.8.
Alternatively, you can switch to using a time-based approach for Sprint Planning which deals with these types of scenarios more elegantly. If you haven't watch my video on this topic you can see it here:
ruclips.net/video/94sqZadKOFI/видео.html
Hope it helps, and let me know if you there's anything else I can help with :)
Richard
I want to know based on what to add story points to each story or task n sub-task, am really confused regarding this point, according to what exactly to set this number of story points
Hi Mohamed, our suggestion is to only use Story Points on your Product Backlog Items. I.e. Story, Task and bug issue types. If you use sub-tasks, my preference is to use time, and you'll see how I do that in Part 3 of the Sprint Planning videos series :)
please create a video on relative estimation. regards.
Thanks Farooque - it’s on the list! :)
Hi @MrFarooqueazam, if you're still interested in Relative Estimation you can watch our first video cover this topic here: ruclips.net/video/QUo5l4wwmzk/видео.html thanks!
buddy, just want to understand in product backlog as you push stories to main sprint at bottom sum of story points appears, how did you do that.kindly let me know
Hi Ajinkya, that's part of Jira cloud and should always be visible. Perhaps you're using Jira Server?
@@AxisAgileApps okay I need to see and experiment myself, let me come back. can you provide your email id to reach
@@travellingduo sorry for the delayed reply, feel free to connect and message me over LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/richardkaupins/
so its the scrum masters job to input all these info into jira? the epic task description, story points?
Hi Emmanuel, great question. It's the responsibility of the Scrum Master to make sure these details are added at the right time, but they may not necessarily be the one who inputs the details. For example, a Scrum Master will typically coach a Product Owner on how to maintain the Product Backlog, and ensure descriptions, Story Points etc have been updated in time for an upcoming Sprint Planning session. So in that case, the Product Owner would have entered the details, but the Scrum Master took responsibility of making sure that the process was well understood and followed.
I hope that makes sense, but if not let me know and i can provide more examples.
Thanks,
Richard
@@AxisAgileApps thank you sonic hi love this so informative
If we leave buffer time in each sprint, over the time wouldn't the average velocity tend to become zero?
How to fix it?
Hi, your videos are good and effective, but it obviously requires some simple examples as you describe, without examples it is not very clear to understand , thanks
Thanks for the feedback Arash!
Please correct the following understanding:
1. Product Backlog is created by the PO and the SM
2. Product refinement is performed by PO,SM & team (may include subject matter experts etc) this includes story estimates (hrs or story points etc), priority and sufficient detail - DEEP
3. Sprint Planning by SM & team based on hrs or velocity
Questions:
Q1. The video does not talk about how much time these items take - should we create a Sprint 0 to do this or should it be included in the Sprint 1 timeline?
Q2. What happens to an in completed story within a sprint
Q2.1 do you only add Story points to the sprint of completed stories or completed tasks within a story (does Jiri account for task estimates?)
Q2.2 do the remaining tasks move back to the product backlog?
Hey Rakesh, for Q1 you'll find my response to your comment on our Product Backlog Video (ruclips.net/video/hUhSpY1W6nk/видео.html&lc=Ugz5bLGkxheS3vZysoF4AaABAg.9kHaSpXQJhv9kjI7x4RaG2).
Please see remaining answers below:
Q2. Technically incomplete Stories should go back into the Product Backlog and reprioritised by the PO. While most PO's will typically just push them to the subsequent Sprint this should not be an assumption made by the team/SM.
Q2.1 I like to only award Story Points for completed stories. I.e. the Sprint velocity is the summation of all the Product Backlog Items that meet the team's Definition of Done (DoD). This will encourage the team to focus on completing the User Stories within a Sprint.
Q2.2 Yes, the team should make sure they have tracked what tasks for the User Stories are complete, and what still needs to be done. I like to do this using sub-tasks, but it could also be done within the description field.
Hope it helps, and let me know if you need me to clarify anything. Thanks again!
Richard
Please create a video
Hi Victor, if you are after our video on Relative Estimation, you can check out our video series here:
ruclips.net/p/PLL-72IrJnz2w_8JyHQVlWSw2w3eP9tL76
Thanks!
Awe man, where is the subtasks video?
It’s just about ready Mick! Will publish it shortly
Thanks!!
Here it is :) ruclips.net/video/94sqZadKOFI/видео.html
velocity
Hey @john-c4443, not sure if you wanted to ask a question - if so, let me know! :)
Video on Velocity here: ruclips.net/video/goMqlVkxrcw/видео.html :)
Hi, please make a video on relative estimation. Thanks
Hi Querubin, thanks for the request :) we have it on our list.
Hi @querubindemayo3474, if you're still interested you can find our first video on Relative Estimation here: ruclips.net/video/QUo5l4wwmzk/видео.html thanks!