Developers held Accountable without Authority

With authority follows accountability. The other way around is also true. Anyone who’s held accountable has to have authority. Unfortunately it is far too common that developers are held accountable for a project, even though they don’t have any real authority. They typically are responsible for the delivery, but the authority stays on management level… Continue reading Developers held Accountable without Authority

Programmer Time Translation Table

An experienced project manager I used to work with claimed that he took the programmers’ time estimates, multiplied by pi and converted to the next time magnitude to get the true number. 1 day converts to 3.14 weeks. He had learned the hard way that programmers are bad at estimating times. To get a more… Continue reading Programmer Time Translation Table

Disarming Different Estimates with a Deck of Cards

Yesterday I got hold of a deck of cards, specially made for playing planning poker at sprint planning. I’ve been through many sprint plans before but never actually played planning poker with cards. I’m stunned by the difference it made. Without the cards, I’ve always been careful that everyone settles their own opinion first, before… Continue reading Disarming Different Estimates with a Deck of Cards