Want Better Estimates? Stop Estimating!
Joel Semeniuk discusses ways of making better project estimates excluding guessing as much as possible.
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The Problem of Power Consumption in Servers
Power consumption by servers is of increasing concern to business and IT management. This Intel article discusses the sources of power consumption as a function of server form factor and workload; power consumption of other components, power supplies and conversion, plus heat generation and cooling demands. How to estimate consumption and design factors affecting consumption are also covered.
News about Estimating
That's How You're Using Story Points? No Way.
Story points are about estimating relative effort, gauging how difficult it will be to complete one feature relative to another. They are an abstraction of the cost, effort, and labor needed to produce that feature. Simple enough concept right? Wrong. Some teams are using story points to rank features rather than estimate effort. Hard to believe? Read on.
Are There Better Estimation Techniques for Experienced Teams?
The results of software estimation are important for stakeholders to take care of team allocation and budgeting. A widely prevalent technique to estimate in Agile has been Planning Poker, which is a consensus based. Does this way of estimating take too much time? Are there other methods which can be employed by experienced practitioners?
Re-estimate Completed User Stories for a More Accurate Velocity?
In a recent thread on the Scrum Development mailing list, Paul Battison asked whether his team should re-estimate completed stories after the sprint is done, so as to have the team's velocity reflect the actual effort that went into completing the stories.
Is Estimating A Wasteful Practice?
The age old problem of software "estimation" has generated some interesting discussion lately in the agile community. J.B. Rainsberger, Arlo Belshee, Josh Kerievsky, David Anderson, and others ask the question "Are estimates really needed at all?"
Evidence Based Scheduling and FogBugz 6.0
Joel Spolsky recently posted an article about Evidence Based Scheduling. The post focuses on managing and identifying good estimates, in turn allowing the project manager to forecast the probability of delivering on a given date, adding a new method of measurement to the agile project manager's toolbox. InfoQ investigates the theory behind the practice, and its implementation in FogBugz 6.0.