iceScrum Forums Discuss on iceScrum

Hi,

As you explained, sprint burnup and burndown charts in number of tasks or task remaining time lose relevance when tasks are added / remove throughout the sprint.

However, what you suggest has a few flaws:
– introducing a magic formula between number of tasks (or remaining time?) and story points is questionable
– even with your proposal, adding tasks to a story would have an impact on the chart by lowering the “achieved points”, removing tasks on the other hand would increase achieved points, which would result in a curve very similar to the one you get from tasks alone.

I am afraid that there is no really good indicator for sprint progress if tasks are not created accurately in advance, which is the case when there is high uncertainty. In such case, the ScrumMaster and the team should focus on daily standup meetings, discussions and visual management through the task board evolution in order to keep track of the sprint advancement and forecast failure to deliver stories on time.

By the way, in iceScrum v7, a % of advancement is displayed on “in progress” stories, which is computed according to task completion but there is no impact on story points.

I understand that your context make it difficult to follow the progress of your team and I am willing to help. However, based on nearly a decade of experience in agile project management, I expressed my doubts regarding the solution you suggested.

Here is what I suggested instead:

the ScrumMaster and the team should focus on daily standup meetings, discussions and visual management through the task board evolution in order to keep track of the sprint advancement and forecast failure to deliver stories on time.

I don’t know how you came to the conclusion that I suggested to either start using task estimates or follow only the story point charts, I did not say anything close to that.

Let me reformulate my suggestion: the very best way to follow the advancement of a sprint and the likelihood to finish stories is by looking at the task board on a daily basis and foster communication with and within the team. Transparency, communication, collaboration, inspection etc. (e.g. through visual management and meetings) are the very fundations of the agile philosophy, while charts and estimates are only additional and optional tools that may or may not assist in the process.

The above addresses the fact that you have hard time following the progress of your team. Another point that I would suggest to address is what motivates the need to follow the progress of the team, which is perhaps a tendency to fail to deliver what is planned? If this is the case, this should be addressed too and hopefully the need to follow closely the progress of sprints will fade over time as everybody involved gain confidence in the ability of the team to deliver stories.

Hi Boyd,

Thanks for the clear and detailed explanation!

I agree that the task burnup chart is probably the most valuable of the charts offered by iceScrum in your case. The tendency of the curves is not relevant, as they will grow or stay constant even if works is achieved. However, if you forget about that, the chart still shows the equivalent of total task percentage achievement every day, which may be a good indicator for sprint completion. The thing that is missing as compared to your solution is the weighting of tasks according to the points of the stories they belong to, which we are cautious about because it really depends on the practices of the teams (how they estimate stories, how they split them into tasks etc).

Cheers,

Nicolas