RE: Six Sigma and XP Estimation / Planning

Bill,

This sounds interesting.

I'm sending Eric a few suggestions offline to keep the chatter down.

Charlie Poole
[email protected]
www.pooleconsulting.com
www.charliepoole.org




 -----Original Message-----
From: Bill Walton [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 3:45 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [XC] Six Sigma and XP Estimation / Planning


  We're joined now by a real Six Sigma guru.  His name is Eric Maass.  Eric
is Director of Technology Strategy for Motorola's Wireless and Broadband
Systems Group.  At the same time, he is Chairman of the Six Sigma Black
Belts Steering Committee for Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector.   He
has a web page at http://www.geocities.com/ecmaass/ for anyone who wants to
check out his CV.  In a conversation with another 6S guru who hasn't had
time to join us I was told "I think you hit the nail on the head. The future
is really in a balanced mix of XP and Six Sigma."  So I have some high hopes
that, in talking with Eric, we may find that XP has an ally in 6S that could
bridge some communication gaps with organizations that are doing 6S, or at
least think highly of it, but who don't know as much about XP.

  I posed a question earlier about whether / to what extent XP would find
support for it's estimating / planning practices in a Six Sigma environment.
In particular, I'm wondering about the practice of committing to a velocity
for iteration X that's equal to the velocity achieved in iteration X-1.  As
I said earlier, I have a feeling that could be perceived as "shooting low."
I wonder if 6S's statistical underpinnings might recommend a different
approach that wouldn't put any more pressure on the development team re:
unrealistic committments but, at the same time, answer this question plus
the question about whether / how many stories should be estimated and in the
queue in case the team accomplishes more than initially committed in an
iteration.  I also tend to think XP's practice of picking a "best guess" at
an initial velocity and then adjusting based on actual results (as opposed
to trying to develop a long term timeline that will be difficult to adjust,
etc.) may find support in 6S in the context of establishing a baseline.

  Eric is new to XP and has expressed a need to come up to speed on the
practices and the terminology.  I thought it would be best, since practices
are evolving, since there seems to be some variation in practice, and since
I'm still researching XP as opposed to actually doing it, to ask you guys to
explain the estimating / planning practices you use.  Or, if you like, I
could explain it as I understand it from my readings and talking to you here
and let you correct me as necessary.

  Best regards,
  Bill

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