Comments on: Poker Playing for Software Development Projects http://www.innovationontherun.com/poker-playing-for-software-development-projects/ Ruminations about innovation and software by Rob Di Marco Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:04:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: tim http://www.innovationontherun.com/poker-playing-for-software-development-projects/comment-page-1/#comment-15 tim Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:42:15 +0000 http://www.innovationontherun.com/poker-playing-for-software-development-projects/#comment-15 Some developers are pretty good at estimating. Others are pretty horrible. What's kind of sad is that, for whatever reason, it's really really hard to teach those who are bad at it to get better. I've also worked with some "problem child" developers, who simply refuse to estimate at all. When pressed, they just say "2 weeks", but you know it's BS, and you know they just don't care. We actually have used a simple version of planning poker on my team at Yahoo, and have found that it did improve our estimates, and the team liked it pretty well. :) It helps for the same reason that code reviews help; the collective works better/smarter than the individual. If it doesn't, you should fix that problem before you worry about anything else. :) Some developers are pretty good at estimating. Others are pretty horrible. What’s kind of sad is that, for whatever reason, it’s really really hard to teach those who are bad at it to get better.

I’ve also worked with some “problem child” developers, who simply refuse to estimate at all. When pressed, they just say “2 weeks”, but you know it’s BS, and you know they just don’t care.

We actually have used a simple version of planning poker on my team at Yahoo, and have found that it did improve our estimates, and the team liked it pretty well. :) It helps for the same reason that code reviews help; the collective works better/smarter than the individual. If it doesn’t, you should fix that problem before you worry about anything else. :)

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