{"id":273,"date":"2014-09-24T13:50:08","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T13:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/buffer_tasks_blog.html"},"modified":"2021-09-15T00:02:48","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T00:02:48","slug":"buffer_tasks_blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/buffer_tasks_blog\/","title":{"rendered":"Completing Sprints: The Power of Buffering"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Bt1NnCb_bqc?rel=0&amp;controls=0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/Bt1NnCb_bqc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Agile Scrum Methodology<\/a><\/p>\n<p>When a team commits to delivering a number of features in a specific time period, it is common knowledge that they do not know at that point what kind of impediments they will have to contend with. Common impediments to delivery are:<\/p>\n<p>1. Absenteeism<br \/>\n2. Failure of software or hardware resources<br \/>\n3. People pinching (team members moved to other teams)<br \/>\n4. Unforeseen defects with the product<br \/>\n5. Necessary (and unnecessary) meetings<\/p>\n<p>(<strong>NOTE:<\/strong>\u00a0Struggling to understand the basics of scrum quickly? Get the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/go.pashunconsulting.co.uk\/power-of-scrum-audio-order-form?source=website&#038;medium=powerscrumblogbanner\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Power of Scrum Audio Book<\/a>. You can use it to get a complete overview and foundation in scrum fast, before even having to \u201croll-out\u201d a single scrum practice to your team.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/go.pashunconsulting.co.uk\/power-of-scrum-audio-order-form?source=website&#038;medium=powerscrumblogbanner\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Check it out here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/go.pashunconsulting.co.uk\/power-of-scrum-audio-order-form?source=website&#038;medium=powerscrumblogbanner\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"https:\/\/go.pashunconsulting.co.uk\/power-of-scrum-audio-order-form?source=website&#038;medium=powerscrumblogbanner noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-901 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/power-of-scrum-johnson-box.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"375\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/power-of-scrum-johnson-box.png 600w, https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/power-of-scrum-johnson-box-300x188.png 300w, https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/power-of-scrum-johnson-box-440x275.png 440w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/h3>\n<p>Due to a combination of these factors, a forecast of one day&#8217;s effort for a task can actually take multiple days. For this reason, it makes sense to buffer all tasks with some contingency based on the expert&#8217;s knowledge (see my chapter on using evidence from the past). The key thing here is to buffer in as many places as possible. In my teams I suggest adding buffers in the following areas:<\/p>\n<p>1. A cut off date within the sprint by which development must finish to make sure that Quality Assurance (QA) have time to finish their work.<br \/>\n2. Features (usually estimated in story points) are estimated higher where there is uncertainty<br \/>\n3. Task estimates (usually estimated in hours, up to no more than a day) are usually increased to allow for known impediments<br \/>\n4. The number of days in the sprint are usually modified to reflect planning, a known consistent amount of time for meetings and recurring impediments. E.g. a 2 week sprint could become actually 8 days based on the above.<\/p>\n<p>I recommend that you apply the principles above and adjust the times until you achieve a level of consistent delivery.<\/p>\n<p>(<strong>NOTE:<\/strong>\u00a0Struggling to understand the basics of scrum quickly? Get the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/go.pashunconsulting.co.uk\/power-of-scrum-audio-order-form?source=website&#038;medium=powerscrumblogbanner\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Power of Scrum Audio Book<\/a>. You can use it to get a complete overview and foundation in scrum fast, before even having to \u201croll-out\u201d a single scrum practice to your team.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/go.pashunconsulting.co.uk\/power-of-scrum-audio-order-form?source=website&#038;medium=powerscrumblogbanner\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Check it out here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/go.pashunconsulting.co.uk\/power-of-scrum-audio-order-form?source=website&#038;medium=powerscrumblogbanner\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"https:\/\/go.pashunconsulting.co.uk\/power-of-scrum-audio-order-form?source=website&#038;medium=powerscrumblogbanner noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-901 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/power-of-scrum-johnson-box.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"375\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/power-of-scrum-johnson-box.png 600w, https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/power-of-scrum-johnson-box-300x188.png 300w, https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/power-of-scrum-johnson-box-440x275.png 440w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Agile Scrum Methodology When a team commits to delivering a number of features in a specific time period, it is common knowledge that they do not know at that point what kind of impediments they will have to contend with. Common impediments to delivery are: 1. Absenteeism 2. Failure of software or hardware resources 3.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scrum-foundation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1064,"href":"https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions\/1064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pashunconsulting.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}