Estimating Poorly Defined Agile Projects

From Twitter today came the following definition: Epicac – In software development with Scrum, a feature so horribly defined it makes you vomit when asked to estimate how long it will take.

I know anything can be estimated and that using ranges will generate a mean estimate and range.  No need to vomit with estimating rigour.  SEER has knowledge bases and sizing methods to size a Single Scrum.  I recommend ALWAYS preparing an estimate of the overall program: effort, schedule, cost, risk.. Then using SEER for the difficult tiny Sprints.  I always cringe when a project says “we can’t estimate.  We will just tell you when we are done”  That is not agile, that is a cop-out.  How many stakeholders will approve of such a project?

PS I just Googled the word Epicac.  At least one definition refers to a computer that wrote poems and fell in love.  Glad I missed that one in the past.

Related posts:

1. Estimation & Agile Development… Plan and Control Agile Projects While at the IBM Rational user conference in Orlando I (Dan Galorath) attended a briefing by Scott Ambler, practice leader...
2. Agile Estimating User Stories There is an interesting article on estimating agile software with user story points   agile estimating.  While the intent of the article avoids...
3. Combining Agile and Traditional Development Gary Gack , software process consultant, did an interesting webinar and discussed the combining of Agile and traditional development approaches. ...
4. Agile Development Mature Scrum Thanks to Tom Gilb for the article on a CMMI level 5 company that implemented Agile . I think the most interesting...
5. Peaceful Coexistence of Agile Development and CMMI In the SEI paper “CMMI or Agile: Why Not Embrace Both“  a truce between Agile and CMMI is called for. ...

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