we had our second iteration kickoff today.
the first iteration was a bit premature — but i knew that. there were still issues with the team’s preparation:
- getting their systems setup
- understanding the best project structure
- reconfiguring SVN
- figuring out some of the flex UI issues
- determining how to do CFUnit properly
- etc.
The team was also new to
- working collaboratively across multiple time zones,
- doing an agile project,
- doing a feature-driven approach,
- having to estimate features,
- doing domain modeling
- considering a technical architecture
- using tools like the confluence wiki, jira issue tracking, and IRC
Nonetheless, nothing like a deadline and an exercise to help bring things to the foreground!
We allotted only 25% of their available time to be allocated as ideal engineering hours for the task estimates. About half of the iteration or more was taken up by issues with infrastructure, set up, etc. Surprise, surprise, we got 17 of 31 issues completed. about 50% — which stands to reason.
there are a couple of lingering technical issues as we start this iteration. we rolled over the unfinished issues for iteration 1, added a new round of follow-on issues, and went through an estimating and assigning session.
progress is being made on many fronts. now to see some features roll off the assembly line in a bit more predictable fashion for this milestone!