Estimation was an ongoing issue that I and my team were struggling with at my last company. Of course there were better sprints, but there were also ones with totally inaccurate estimation. Everything was either over- or underestimated.
As a Scrum Master, who was assisted by a great team, I tried to improve it in many various ways and... when I changed a job, there were still issues with estimation itself. But, after a closer look, I need to admit that all battles against wrong numbers standing next to “to-be-done” tasks were worth fighting for. We improved a number of things: our Sprint Plannings, Retrospectives, writing User Stories and good Definition of Done. I could list even more things which were improved in times when we gave special attention to estimation.
I need to say that I'm really proud that I had this great opportunity to work with so many enthusiastic people keeping an open mind and we were able to together achieved more than I could even imagine at the beginning of this journey.
But wait a minute, and what about estimation? As I wrote earlier, it's still not accurate. But after short while I think that my failure as a Scrum Master is not in NOT fixing it, but in fact that I didn't notice that in this project estimation there was nothing more than waste of time. At least as detailed as we thought.
Why am I saying so?
Product Owner was more interested in a well working and tested application rather than in releasing at a fixed date. There were deadlines, but if they were required, almost always we could work for one or two more sprints. There was no pressure on deadlines, there was pressure on customer satisfaction and their user experience. And I found it really good, for everyone: from the customers who got the best quality software, through developers which were focused on quality not deadlines, to our boss who was able to generate profits on it.
That's why I think that I failed in this matter. I was so focused on doing everything as it’s written in Scrum Guide that I didn't notice that not everything was fitting there. I forgot that Scrum is a framework and we should take from it everything that can help us. And not more.
So next time when you fight for something, take a break and think for a moment if it is really a good idea. Maybe you are just wasting your strength, as well as the strength of your own team. Maybe an element that is not working doesn't work not because of wrong implementation, but because it's just a waste?
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