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Skuebeck
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Anecdotal Evidence as you describe it is a form of induction and that's always problematic.
[...] Now it is far from obvious, from a logical point of view, that we are justified in inferring universal statements from singular ones, no matter how numerous; for any conclusion drawn in this way may always turn out to be false: no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.
-- Karl Popper: The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1934
Anecdotal Evidence is not Actually Evidence
When we hear I know a CEO that uses this method and she's happy with the outcomes, has several core fallacies wrapped into one. The first is the self-selection problem of statistics. This is the Standish problem. Send out a survey, tally the results from those that were returned. Don't publish...
...if you really want to commit to spending other peoples money with a confidence range of +65 to -72% of performing like you did in the past? I sure hope not!!
The question is what random variable you are interested in. When it comes to project planning, you're probably interested in how much work will be finished until sprint X and not so much how much work is done in each individual sprint?
In this case, you'd better use the cumulative velocity.
This is also much more convenient for the linear random process ARIMA is generating.
The Flaw of Averages and Not Estimating
There is a popular notion in the #NoEstimates paradigm that Empirical data is the basis of forecasting the future performance of a development project. In principle this is true, but the concept is not complete in the way it is used. Let's start with the data source used for this conjecture. The...
Unfortunately, the opposite is true as well:
The weakness of the team is each individual member. The weakness of each member is the team.
This also known as Swarm-Stupidity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-hsD2gnuRU
Quote of the Day
The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team. Phil Jackson Former NBA Head Coach
Nice post! I might be wrong but I think you are contradicting yourself:
> There can be no consideration for NOT estimating, except on de minimis projects.
How can you know that it is a minimis project without estimating?
It's actually very hard to think about the future without estimating anything.
Reference Class Forecasting
Our long time friends have moved to our neighborhood here in Colorado. Their moving van arrived today. We brought coffee to them while their old house was being unloaded into the new house. Talking with the moving van owner, he started telling stories about estimating the load in pounds. The a...
Are you aware of the fact that you are the strongest supporter of NoEstimates? The more you argue against it the more attention it gets. If this is intentional you do a really good job. ;-)
> really don't mean NO when I say NO Estimates, I mean YES, but it means NO, so give me $1,000 and I'll let you hear me say that in person.
This is really confusing to me. NoEstimates seems to mean the following things and it's often difficult for me to tell from the context which one is meant:
1. NoEstimates as reminder to rethink the way we deal with estimates
2. NoEstimates meaning no estimates at all
3. NoEstimates meaning not estimating effort but probably estimating something else
4. NoEstimates as technique of "indirect" estimation: Split stories until they all have the same size. If you want to know if you have to split a story, you have to estimate if a story is bigger than the other. Or did I get this wrong?
The Fallacy of Wild Numbers
DeMacro made this post, which has been picked up by the agile community to mean estimating is a waste. My early metrics book, Controlling Software Projects: Management, Measurement, and Estimation (Prentice Hall/Yourdon Press, 1982), played a role in the way many budding software engineers qua...
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