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--- android:smartdirt:smartdirt_1.0_summary [2012/04/10 18:09]
mjallison
+++ android:smartdirt:smartdirt_1.0_summary [2012/10/10 07:13] (current)
@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 The following charts show the velocity as measured for the development duration of the project. The first chart shows the estimates of stories (in ideal days) and the measured duration (in actual days). If the team is "hitting it's mark" the two numbers will be identical for each story (variation between stories is due to the actual technical content of each story).
+Another measure of "hitting the mark" is EV values very close to 1.0 (calendar velocities are lower because of weekends, 5/7 to be accurate).
 The second chart shows the velocities of each story, as measured in actual task work days, and as measured against the calendar. The first velocity is called the "Effort Velocity" (EV) while the second is called "Calendar Velocity" (CV). In general velocities are applied to story estimates to predict actual end dates. An Effort Velocity allows you to calculate the actual task days, while the Calendar Velocity allows you to calculate the story completion date.
@@ Line 34: / Line 36: @@
 It's not reasonable to use any specific velocity from any one story, but it's better to compute aggregate velocities over the entire 1.0 project. The aggregate values will lump many real world distractions in and do a better job of modeling future performance. Average V incorporate all distractions encountered on during SmartDirt 1.0, while median V only take into account moderate distractions (multiple month distractions are thrown out).
+|    |  Average  |  Median  |
+| EV |  0.88     |  0.97    |
+| CV |  0.82     |  1.06    |
+Given that we have EVa, EVm, CVa, CVm a final value is to be calculated, which is Calendar Velocity for the total project (CVt). The estimated duration was 257 days while the actual duration was 410 days. This provides the final value:
+|  CVt   |  0.63  |
+NOTE: Story zero was thrown out of the data calculations because it was so short and wasn't technically similar to the other stories. The artificially high velocities skews the average and median values to higher than actual.
+Because of the small number of stories, median velocity values are significantly higher than measured project velocity or average. I (mja) believe a more reasonable velocity value is somewhere between the average and median values.
 **How to apply.**
-For future projects planning can use these numbers to calculate more likely end dates and durations on a story by story basis or the entire project. For example suppose a story is estimating 37 ideal days, using the typical EV, we can compute probable duration = 37 * EVt = .
+For future projects planning can use these numbers to calculate more likely end dates and durations on a story by story basis or the entire project. Use average velocity values to apply to individual stories, while the total velocity (CVt) should be applied to the entire project.
+Example 1: Suppose a story is estimating 37 ideal days, using the average EV, we can compute probable duration = 37 / EVa = 42. This tells us the engineers are probably going to "run over" by 5 days on the original estimate for the story. Using the average CV we see an end date of 37 / 0.82 = 45.1 or probably 46 days in the future.
+Example 2: SmartDirt stories total to 257 ideal days, slightly more than one work year. With two engineers we'd expect it to be done in about 6 months, which didn't happen. A more likely date would be 257 / CVa = 313 days. In fact the actual end of SmartDirt ended up being 410 days, almost 3 months shy of this prediction. This is where we apply CVt. 257 / 0.63 = 407.
+Using story level velocities is usually a good measure of where the current story will end up. Engineers are usually not taken in the beginning of a story, usually toward the last half. Using the total velocity (CVt) is useful for determining the end date of the entire project.
 **Caveats**
@@ Line 43: / Line 62: @@
    * Major new technology introduced - e.g. NDK on x86, 'porting to Windows Mobile'.
    * Borrowing (poaching) engineers for other effort - Will invalidate Median V numbers.
+   * The small number of stories mean that the median values aren't in any sense typical.
+   * Individual velocities have not been measured.
+**Recommendations**
+   * The current velocity numbers should be used to compute more likely dates for communication to management or internally to decide if specific work can be done within a specified time frame.
+   * Future projects should continue to measure velocity and in particular add to the data so median calculations are more statistically reliable.
+      * Engineers should not apply velocity to their initial estimates and continue to estimate in "ideal days".
+   * Engineers need to do a better job of marking accurate actual dates.
+   * Engineers need to do a better job of closing tasks (several tasks in story 6 are still "open").

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