First Sprint for 08

An interesting sprint. Exactly 40 points were originally allocated each for the starting 160 points. This is the number that we wanted. It leaves 20 points (33%) for incidents.

57 total incidents were added. We planned for that to be 80.

For the two weeks:

Team Velocity = 144
Average Points = 36
Average Hours = 54

Comments:

• We want to use this as a means to get better at what we do. If you don't like the idea of stats compare it to a video game. It would not be very interesting if there was no score or time...if you didn't get any feedback. We're doing the best we can do to generate meaningful feedback.
• This is a structure that we are putting in place to help us stay on beat as we grow. It will also be valuable in times where we are under the gun and have to plan and produce results.
• In this sprint I think people feel like a lot was done compared to the points that were put up. That brings up an interesting question about a point. We equate points with the effort required to complete the project (this is standard scrum). Maybe there should be a factor involved for how valuable the completed project is to the software.
• There also needs to be an element of quality and we are working on that now. The defects will allow us to monitor the quality of the projects produced in the sprint over time. The sprint is not complete until there has been enough time to weigh the defects that have come in over a number of months. More importantly we will use the defects to highlight what mistakes we are making and cut down on how often we make them.
  
• We talked about measuring unplanned incidents to determine a "company loss of focus " factor. In this sprint nobody exceeded the 20 planned incidents.

This system is not perfect but we have a good start and the plan is to continue to tweak it over time.

Eventually we will present it at SD West as a cutting edge methodology...and we will have solid results and a couple of years of data to back it up.