Estimation in Scrum | Data Driven | Cycle Time & Monte Carlo

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FREE EXCEL TEMPLATE BELOW!

NoEstimates and using Cycle Time and Monte Carlo does NOT mean we don’t discuss the work as a team and break it down, identifying dependencies and constraints, of course we continue to do this. It just means stop using story points, velocity and burndowns and stop providing an estimate (in days, weeks, months or sprints) to leadership based on that. Instead use a data lead approach to inform leadership, with a high probability of it actually happening. Watch the video to find out how.

How do you estimate a user story and should you even try? In my experience spending time 'estimating' user stories with story points with the Fibonacci sequence and using planning poker almost always results in wasting everyones time. They generally don't provide any real value. Neither does figuring out your 'velocity' and plotting it onto a burn down chart. The best way is to use cycle time and then Monte Carlo Simulation to forecast - with accuracy - when you will be able to deliver your work, whether that's 50 user stories or 1,000. This works equally well in either the Scrum or Kanban frameworks. So, no need for story pointing, burndown charts or velocity - and no need to estimate! In this video I show you how to forecast delivery of any number of stories with an 85% probability using Monte Carlo Simulation in Excel.

Note: This relates to column D in sheet 1.

The formula in cell D2 is 10-C2 but the formula in D3 needs to be D2-C3 and the formula in D4 needs to be D3-C4 and so on to allow column D to eventually get to 0 or a minus number.
If you want to calculate how long it takes to get more than 10 items done change the formula in cell D2 to be 100-C2 or 1000-C2 etc

Monte Carlo Simulation Template Download:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JRau...

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