Summary: Play Now: This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast for The PMI-ACP Exam: This interview with Mark Layton was recorded at the Southland Technology Conference 2013 in Long Beach. Mark Layton (https://platinumedge.com/) has been an entrepreneur, consultant, and trainer in project management for the last 20 years. (And as it so happens, Cornelius Fichtner was a student in one of his Scrum Master classes.) Mark and Cornelius got together in Long Beach to talk about Agile estimation. Mark says that traditional requirement estimation techniques are a frustrating combination of wild guesses and false precision. While estimates are given down to the exact hour of effort, the accuracy of those predictions vary wildly and provide no opportunity to self-correct based on actual performance. This inaccuracy problem is then intentionally masked by an even more inefficient tool - contingency reserve. In our interview, Mark describes how using agile estimation techniques is faster, easier, more informed, more honest, and ultimately, more accurate than guessing to the hour how long tasks months in the future will take to complete. Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only. Podcast Introduction Cornelius Fichtner: I am still at the Southland Technology Conference 2013 here in Long Beach and this time I welcome Mark Layton from Platinum Edge. Podcast Interview Cornelius Fichtner: Hello Mark! Mark Layton: Hello! Thank you so much. Cornelius Fichtner: Your presentation earlier today is titled :Agile Estimation: Faster, Easier and More Accurate" How did it go? Mark Layton: I thought it went well. We had a lot of really good audience participation. We had just under a hundred people that were stuffed into the room. All the chairs were taken. People against the wall. So there seem to be good participation and interest so we were fortunate. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah and out of the 300 people attendance, you got a third while there were 3 more people speaking after you. That means, it's a topic that people want to learn about. Mark Layton: It seem to be, yeah. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah! So what is the fundamental difference between estimating under Waterfall and estimating under Agile? Mark Layton: Well fundamental is right. I mean it is a fundamental difference. I mean when you talk about a traditional Waterfall approach, it's premised on starting off with a holistic view of all of the requirements. So at the very start of your process what you are going to do is you're going to sit down and you're going to gather all of the requirements that sound like they are a good idea. And as long as they sound like they're a good idea, they're going to be included in the project itself. Now from that pool of requirements, you're going to look at those requirements and you're going to basically guess at how long it would take to develop all those of requirement and from that guess of how long it's going to take to develop all of that requirements from a time perspective, you will establish how much budget is necessary to be able to do it. When you talk about doing it under an Agile approach, it's actually the exact opposite of that. Under an Agile approach what you're going to do is you're going to start off and you're going to say: "Alright! Well, what is the maximum amount of money that we can spend and still deliver the return on investment that we promised the funding committee when we went before them for approval? What's the maximum amount of money that we can spend and still deliver that ROI?" From that maximum amount of money that you can spend, it's going to buy you a dedicated development team for a set period of time. Under an Agile model, what you're going to do is you're going to start off and say: "Alright! Well what is the maximum amount of money that we can spend and still deliver the ROI that we promised the organization? What's the maximum amount of money that we
