Advanced Estimating Q&A

#74. Join me with Vasco Duarte who runs Oikosofy a coaching company in Finland and is also behind the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. Vasco is the author of a fascinating book, #NoEstimates. Vasco and I chat about the challenges of estimating complex business application software, particularly in the CRM and ERP domains, and how the No Estimates movement and the method covered in his book can help business applications teams construct collaborative contracts with their customers and never deliver late again. At the end of this podcast episode, I give details on how you can win one of 14 copies of Vasco's book, the No Estimates book.Our discussion coversThe #noestimates movement and how the approach addresses the frustration of unreliable and late delivery on software projects.Alternatives to traditional estimation methodologies.Using the Extreme Contracts approach to create a win-win situation between vendors and customers.Educating Product Owners who may have never been involved in software development.Blink estimates, or rethinking what is delivered in a sprint to deliver customer value as quickly as possible.The "Clinton process" Spike concept centred on solving a problem for the customer with the aim of delivering a solution in a very short time frame.ResourcesVasco Duarte on LinkedInNo Estimates book Scrum Master Toolbox PodcastExtreme Contracts - Jacopo RomeiAgile Estimating and Planning training Mike Cohn Maarten Dalmijn on Medium.comScrum Master Toolbox Product Owner e-course Neil Killick Blink Estimation The Clinton Process  - Clinton Keith on “No estimates and set-based design” – Blog postRaphael Branger on LinkedIn Spike concept from extreme programming Kent Beck on LinkedIn Amazing Applications podcast page on LinkedInAmazing Applications podcast page on PodchaserScrum for Microsoft Business Apps online course at Customery AcademyAgile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps free online mini-course at Customery AcademySupport the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting

1 Mars 202144min

#73. Daryl LaBar and Jonas Rapp, co-hosts of the XrmToolCast join Neil Benson to answer the questions about how to document complex systems when asked to "devise a roadmap for migrating a Dynamics CRM 2013 and a CRM 2016 environment into a single Dynamics 365 online environment ."A documentation tools masterclass from two experts in the field who discuss what tools to use for on-premise implementations when Snapshot! for Dynamics 365 can’t be used.ResourcesDaryl LaBar on LinkedInJonas Rapp on LinkedInXrmToolCast PodcastSnapshot! for Dynamics 365XrmToolBox Plugin Registration ToolXrmToolBox Web Resource ToolXrmToolBox Attribute Usage InspectorXrmToolBox Metadata Document GeneratorUse Visual Studio Code to search for 'Xrm.'XrmToolBox Power Apps Solution Checker for XrmToolBoxEntity relationship diagram generation tool in Visio 2016 SDKXrmToolBox Entity Relationship Diagram GeneratorUML Diagram Generator for XrmToolBoxVisio Document GeneratorDiagrams.netServer Trigger Explorer from CDS.ToolsAmazing Applications podcast page on LinkedInAmazing Applications podcast page on PodchaserScrum for Microsoft Business Apps online course at Customery AcademyAgile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps free online mini-course at Customery AcademySupport the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪-Neil

23 Feb 202139min

#72. Michael Nunes asks, "When multiple systems are being delivered by different parties, I find that we have to design the details upfront, then use agile for the delivery of the Dynamics 365 systems. Is this your experience too?"Michael's question has two layers that we address in this episode: upfront design and team composition.Upfront design is based on three assumptions:We can know all the requirements upfront.We can design all the components upfront.There won't be any changes.We challenge those assumptions and investigate the drawbacks. Then describe an alternative approach: emergent design.Nexus is a scaled Scrum framework used when there are multiple Scrum teams working on a single application. We discover how to reconsider the composition of developers in our scrum teams when scaling beyond one team.ResourcesMichael Nunes on LinkedInThe Nexus Framework for Scaling Scrum (affiliate link)Amazing Applications podcast page on LinkedInAmazing Applications podcast page on PodchaserScrum for Microsoft Business Apps online course at Customery AcademyAgile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps free online mini-course at Customery AcademySupport the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪-Neil

15 Feb 202112min

#71. Daniel Kerridge says, "I'm the only developer in my team so I just wondered if there's a special version of Scrum that works in that scenario."There are three sets of accountabilities in the scrum team: the product owner, the scrum master and developers. But how many developers do you need? In the previous version of the Scrum Guide, the recommended minimum number of developers to have a cross-functional team was three. But that minimum was removed from the 2020 Scrum Guide.Guy's & St. Thomas's NHS Foundation Trust ran a successful project to implement Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 using a tiny scrum team. Find out how in this episode.Plus three conditions to meet if you have a tiny scrum team.ResourcesDaniel Kerridge on LinkedInBen Knipp on LinkedInAmazing Applications podcast page on LinkedInAmazing Applications podcast page on PodchaserScrum for Microsoft Business Apps online course at Customery AcademyAgile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps free online mini-course at Customery AcademySupport the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪-Neil

8 Feb 20216min

#70. Dan Madden, a program manager at Acensus, asks, "What’s the best way to help bridge that gap between [IT and] the business and ultimately the end-users?"In this episode, you'll learn about the five characteristics of Dynamics 365 and Power Platform projects that have a close relationship between business and IT so that there's no gap in your business applications initiatives.Support the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪-Neil

29 Jan 20218min

#69. In this episode, Andreas Dutz, Business Development Manager at HSO from Bavaria, Germany, asks, "Have you defined what agile means? Are your teams trained in the Agile Manifesto and are your teams applying it today?"The Manifesto for Agile Software development has some flaws you should be aware of. Instead of memorising it and applying it word for word, your teams should consider it and devise your own Manifesto for No-Code/Low-Code Application Development.ResourcesAndreas Dutz on LinkedInManifesto for Agile Software DevelopmentAmazing Applications on LinkedInLeave a question for Amazing ApplicationsSupport the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪-Neil

20 Jan 20219min

#68. What does the structure of a scales business application project look like? What groups and roles do you need when you've got 50 or more team members working together for a year or more to build a large, complex application?In this episode, you'll learn about a model project structure so that you can compare it to yours or use it as a baseline when establishing your own enterprise project team.Resources6 Roles Every Enterprise Business Applications Project Should Have posterLarge-scale Scrum (affiliate link)Nexus Framework for Scaling Scrum (affiliate link)Scaling Done Right (affiliate link)Support the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪-Neil

12 Jan 202115min

#67. In this Q&A episode, Stephen Price , Digital Solution Architect at ITK Consulting in Canada, asks, "How should we manage scope creep within a sprint in an agile project?"The scope of our product is defined by the product backlog, and the scope of our project is a subset of the product backlog. Both are managed by the product owner: the single person responsible and accountable for the product backlog. In my Dynamics 365 and Power Apps projects, the product owner also manages the project scope. Once you’ve set the sprint goal and agreed on the sprint backlog, what happens if someone needs to or wants to change the sprint backlog?Here are five occasions when my teams are asked to change to the sprint backlog:A critical new item is added to the product backlog. We learn something new about one of the items in our sprint backlog.An item in the current sprint fails an acceptance test.We’ve got less (or more) capacity than we expected at the beginning of the sprint.The product owner has changed her priorities.Congratulations to Gavin Embley, another recent Customery Academy student who recently achieved his Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master I certification. You can join Gavin and get started with my Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps free mini-course where you'll learn the basics and benefits of taking an agile approach to building amazing, agile Dynamics 365 and Power Platform applications.Support the showCONNECT🌏 Amazing Apps website🟦 Customery on LinkedIn🟦 Neil Benson on LinkedIn MY ONLINE COURSES🚀 Agile Foundations for Microsoft Business Apps 🏉 Scrum for Microsoft Business Apps 📐 Estimating Business Apps Keep experimenting 🧪-Neil

28 Dec 202021min