Reading time 4 min

Dorien Jorissen

Estimating the effort necessary to develop certain functionalities when writing software gives your customers some certainty and predictability. That being said: making software development estimates is usually not the most popular part of a developer’s job. However, we’ve found a way to gamify development estimates and make them a lot more fun, without sacrificing accuracy. In this blog post, we’ll teach you how to make software development estimates fun with rockstar planning poker. Making estimates for predictability Whenever a feature is clearly defined, it gets split up into user stories . Here’s an example of such a user story: “As a user of this service, I want to invite my friends so that we might enjoy the service together.” Before we start the development of any user story, we estimate the effort we think it’ll take. This way, we’re able to estimate its complexity in a fairly detailed manner and give our customers a certain level of predictability in advance. To be able to do so, we measure how many days it takes us to complete one story point . Story points are a unit of measure for expressing an estimate of the overall effort that’s required to fully implement a user story. The effort is the average number of days one team member needs to complete a story point over a certain time period. The effort multiplied with our team’s capacity gives us an idea of the team’s story throughput , the amount of story points a team can develop over a given period of time. If you extrapolate the story throughput, you can get a clear predictability of the scope you can realize with a team over time. At this stage in the development process, we don’t quite know the intricate details of a user story yet. However, we’ve already done our ‘homework’ and know enough to accurately estimate the complexity of the development of the user story. Estimating with planning poker Planning poker is an ideal way to get to detailed estimates. This way of estimating was described by Mike Cohn in his book Agile Estimating and Planning . During a planning poker session, a user story is estimated by the team that will be working on it. First, the product manager explains what we want to achieve with the user story. Then, the team discusses about what exactly needs to be done to get there, until they reach a consensus about the story. After that, every team member uses ‘planning cards’ to individually estimate the effort required to complete the story. At the count of three, every team member simultaneously turns around their planning card to reveal their estimation in story points. If there are any major differences, the team continues to discuss the story’s complexity until a new consensus is reached. At ACA, we use a series of custom cards to denote a story’s complexity in story points. We have cards with the numbers 0.5 – 1 – 1.5 – 2.5 and 4. However, over time we’ve noticed that stories estimated to be 2.5 or 4 story points introduce more workload and uncertainty, which in turn comprises the predictability towards the customer. Now, all stories that are estimated to be more than 1.5 story points are split up into smaller parts. We’ve therefore limited the numbers on our cards to just 0.5 – 1 and 1.5. So what about rockstar planning poker? Most technical people aren’t very fond of making estimates. Estimation session are tiring and demand a lot of energy, even when using planning poker to gamify the planning process. To liven up those sessions, we’ve been using something we call rockstar planning poker for a few years now. Instead of using cards to denote a story points, we use our hands. Just like in ‘rock, paper, scissors’, we all count to three and then all show our hands to make one of the following signs. Pinkie The universal rockstar signal to order a beer, especially in the lovely student town of Leuven in Belgium. This signal denotes 0.5 story points. Index finger The rockstar way of saying hello! This signal denotes 1 story point. Little finger and index finger The universal way of letting everyone know to rock on. Used to denote a complexity of 1.5 story points. Middle finger The universal signal for … This signal is used to say that the user story needs further clarification or splitting up in smaller parts. Takeaway Rockstar planning poker is an ideal way to keep things fun, and keeping things fun ensures more involvement and work of a high quality. Rockstar planning poker doesn’t necessarily yield better results when it comes to estimating effort, but it has livened up our teams’ estimation sessions. All you need is your hands! So, if you’re tired of those exhausting estimation sessions, why not try rockstar planning poker to spice it up a bit? Good luck, have fun and let us know how you did!

Reading time 4 min

Ulrich Bervoets

For more than twenty years, ACA Group has been known for it’s strong project methodology. After the last few years of exponential growth, it was necessary to critically review and align our joint project approach. If only to refocus on one uniform methodology that all teams apply for their projects. After all, we want to continue to guarantee the well-known ACA quality in the future. To achieve one aligned methodology across all ACA business units and teams, a chapter * of project managers and analysts was established to streamline, focus and challenge the updated methodology. Ulrich Bervoets , leader of the ACA chapters, tells all about it in this article. Why is a project methodology so important to ACA Group? “Our project methodology offers a structured approach to project execution. It not only allows us to set clear objectives and define the scope of the project, but also to predict when the project will be ready and how much it will cost. Providing open communication channels allows us to work effectively with our customers. Our methodology also includes risk management, quality assurance and regular reporting, resulting in a higher success rate and satisfaction for our clients. In short, our project methodology ensures that projects are completed on time, within budget and to satisfaction.” ACA Group has been working according to an Agile-based methodology for more than twenty years, being one of the pioneers. Why was an update needed? “In recent years, ACA Group has grown strongly. Many new colleagues and new business units have joined us in a short period of time. Although each department originally started from the same methodology, in order to respond to the needs of the customer, differences have gradually emerged in the way projects are approached. With our renewed methodology we want to work organization-wide with a uniform approach. This way we can continue to offer our well-known ACA quality in the future. A customer who works with different ACA departments benefits from each project being approached in the same way. It ensures maximum predictability, transparency and trust.” Does this uniform project methodology also benefit ACA Group and its employees? "Certainly! It promotes cooperation between different departments. If every business unit works the same way, it's much easier to bring in analysts and project managers for different projects across different business units. Such a uniform project approach is also very easy for our team leads and managers. When everyone uses the same tools and principles, internal communication and information exchange becomes a lot easier. Moreover, our methodology is not only efficient and innovative, but also fun. Thanks to our chapter work, all our analysts and project managers meet regularly to share knowledge and challenge each other. It helps our colleagues to continuously grow in their role. We notice that our unique way of working is very attractive to analysts and project managers who want to come and work for us. So it also has its advantages in terms of employer branding.” How do you want to ensure that every ACA employee knows and consistently applies the new methodology, also in the long term? “First and foremost, we will immerse new colleagues in our methodology from onboarding through different learning paths. In addition, we want to build general awareness about our techniques and project approach. Through interactive knowledge sharing and inspiration sessions, where fun and learning is combined, we want to inform colleagues and support them in their development as ACA methodology ambassadors. At this moment we want to support the various business units and teams as much as possible in the start-up of a new project and coach them purposefully during the project. In addition, we want to motivate our team leads to support and monitor this process for his/her own team. We notice in our current projects that our methodology is paying off, but we want to continue to improve it in the future." * About the ACA chapters : The chapters serve the purpose of connecting ACA employees who share similar roles and responsibilities across various business units and locations. Their primary objective is to establish a consistent approach to work. By doing so, they facilitate knowledge exchange, fostering mutual growth and collaboration. Moreover, these chapters bring clarity to customers who engage with multiple business units, as they can expect a standardized working methodology. Presently, ACA has established chapters for project managers, analysts, and support staff. Want to know more about the ACA methodology? {% module_block module "widget_e6f1bc5e-ecdc-42fd-b274-0ae73b961a78" %}{% module_attribute "buttons" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}[{"appearance":{"link_color":"light","primary_color":"primary","secondary_color":"primary","tertiary_color":"light","tertiary_icon_accent_color":"dark","tertiary_text_color":"dark","variant":"primary"},"content":{"arrow":"right","icon":{"alt":null,"height":null,"loading":"disabled","size_type":null,"src":"","width":null},"tertiary_icon":{"alt":null,"height":null,"loading":"disabled","size_type":null,"src":"","width":null},"text":"Discover our Methodology here"},"target":{"link":{"no_follow":false,"open_in_new_tab":false,"rel":"","sponsored":false,"url":{"content_id":null,"href":"","href_with_scheme":"","type":"CONTENT"},"user_generated_content":false}},"type":"normal"}]{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "child_css" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}{}{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "css" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}{}{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "definition_id" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}null{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "field_types" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}{"buttons":"group","styles":"group"}{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "isJsModule" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}true{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "label" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}null{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "module_id" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}201493994716{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "path" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}"@projects/aca-group-project/aca-group-app/components/modules/ButtonGroup"{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "schema_version" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}2{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "smart_objects" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}null{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "smart_type" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}"NOT_SMART"{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "tag" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}"module"{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "type" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}"module"{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% module_attribute "wrap_field_tag" is_json="true" %}{% raw %}"div"{% endraw %}{% end_module_attribute %}{% end_module_block %}