LiveCode and SCRUM tools

[Mark Wieder]

Pete-

Saturday, January 4, 2014, 4:47:27 PM, you wrote:

> Of course, the biggest caveat about all this is that people need to be
> realistic about how much longer they need to complete a task.  Any project
> management software is just a tool to implement those estimates. WIthout
> accurate estimates, any method fails and unfortunately, most people are not
> very good at making that kind of estimate (me included!)

Well, yes. But what agile tools bring to the table is the ability (and
in fact the need) to evaluate and adjust goals at each sprint. If I,
as a developer, take on five points per week and consistently only
manage to complete four points, my expectations need to be adjusted
downward and I shouldn't try to take on so much work. On the other
hand, if I consistently finish my five points early and have time to
take on smaller stories to fill up the time, my goal should be
adjusted upward to accomodate that. Over time this iterative process
gets better ad adjusting real-world expectations.

And the number of points in the backlog is a good indication, given
the number of points the group can deliver over a single sprint, of
the amount of time before project completion. This also gets better
over time as you get better at estimating the complexity of individual
stories. Breaking the project down into smaller stories and then
aggregating them statistically gives you a good chance of knowing how
far along a project is, where the bottlenecks are, and where it would
be wise to add more resources.

-- 
-Mark Wieder
 ahsoftware at gmail.com