Agile Agile Estimation Techniques Questions and Answers

Question 1

An Agile team is estimating a large, unrefined backlog for the first time.
The goal is to quickly group user stories by size to get a high-level forecast for release planning.
Which estimation technique is most suitable for this scenario?

Accepted Answer

Affinity Estimating

Answer

Planning Poker

Answer

Absolute Estimation in hours

Answer

Dot Voting

Question 2

During a Planning Poker session, the team discusses a user story. When the cards are revealed, the estimates are wildly different, with one developer showing a '3', another a '13', and a third showing a '?'. What is the most appropriate next step?

Accepted Answer

Have the developers with the highest and lowest estimates explain their reasoning to foster discussion.

Answer

Take the average of the numbers and move to the next item.

Answer

Use the highest estimate to be safe.

Answer

Ask the Product Owner to make the final decision on the estimate.

Question 3

A primary benefit of using relative estimation techniques like Story Points or T-Shirt Sizing over absolute estimation in man-hours is that they:

Accepted Answer

Account for team-specific factors like complexity and uncertainty without being tied to a specific person or time duration.

Answer

Provide a precise prediction of the project's completion date.

Answer

Are directly translatable into budget forecasts for stakeholders.

Answer

Eliminate the need for backlog refinement meetings.

Question 4

Which of the following best describes Story Points?

Accepted Answer

A relative unit of measure for the effort required to implement a work item.

Answer

A unit of time, equivalent to one ideal developer day.

Answer

A measure of business value delivered to the customer.

Answer

A commitment from the team to complete work within a specific timeframe.

Question 5

A team is using T-Shirt Sizing (XS, S, M, L, XL) for high-level backlog estimation. How does this technique typically relate to more granular estimation methods like Story Points?

Accepted Answer

T-Shirt Sizing is often used for initial, coarse-grained estimation, which can later be converted to Story Points as items get closer to implementation.

Answer

T-Shirt Sizing replaces the need for Story Points entirely.

Answer

Each T-shirt size is universally equivalent to a specific number of hours.

Answer

Story Points are used to estimate Epics, and T-Shirt sizes are used for the individual stories within those Epics.

Question 6

An Agile team wants to estimate the effort for a small batch of prioritized user stories for the upcoming sprint. They value collaboration and want to ensure everyone's perspective is heard to avoid anchoring bias. Which technique is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Planning Poker

Answer

T-Shirt Sizing

Answer

Affinity Estimating

Answer

Bottom-Up Estimating

An Agile team is estimating a large, unrefined backlog for the first time.The goal is to quickly group user stories by size to get a high-level forecast for release planning.Which estimation technique is most suitable for this scenario?

An Agile team is estimating a large, unrefined backlog for the first time.
The goal is to quickly group user stories by size to get a high-level forecast for release planning.
Which estimation technique is most suitable for this scenario?