Coaching Charts Exercise

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Charts can help a team see itself better.

This is an exercise for coaches, used in the course Coaching Agile Software Teams at XP Agile Universe ’04, taught by Ron Jeffries and Bill Wake.

We ran the exercise using Thiagi’s ENVELOPES framegame. This format has envelopes with problems on them, and running several rounds where teams try to come up with a solution to the problem. Finally, a team compares the solutions and chooses the one that best exemplifies the answer.

In this online version, we’ll use a different approach. We’ll show each graph, and you can write down your impression of what it’s telling you. Finally, you can compare your answer to expert answers.

The Graphs

1. Velocity

Velocity keeps bouncing up and down
 

2. Lines of Code

Address two cases:
Case 1: Velocity is about the same each iteration
Case 2: Velocity has a curve similar to this one

Lines of code increases but then stays steady overall
 

3. Velocity

Continually increasing velocity
 

4. Acceptance Tests
 

Iteration Max Passing
1 E A,B,C,D,E
2 F A,C,E,F
3 G A,C,D,E,G
4 I A,C,E,F,G,H,I
5 J A,C,D,F,G,I,J
6 K A,C,E,F,G,H,I,J
7 K A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K

 
 

5. Checkins

Iteration Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri
1 xxxxx xxx xxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxxx xx xxxxx xxx
2 xxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xx xxxxx x xxxxx xx
3 xxxxx xxx xx xxxxx xxxxx xx xxxxx xxx xxxxx x
4 xxxxx xxxxx xx xxxxx xxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxx xxxxx x

 

6. Tasks

This snapshot was taken Wednesday, halfway through the iteration.

Tasks
Story 1
    Task A
    Task B

Story 2
    Connect frobbles
    Persistence
    Darnagle the froogles

Story 3
    Lorem ipsit
    Quantius maximus

 Story 4
    Hopp galoppe
    Coniunctirae prillin
    Bloddius rank

Story 5
    Trillin exertes
    Postulo mio
    Agricanka lama
    Needhle pind

 
7. Acceptance Tests  

Acceptance tests

 
 

8. When can we ship?

When can we ship?

 

Expert Answers

Visit the answer page.

Further Study

Several of the XP books (Explained, Installed, Explored, and others) have examples of Big Visible Charts. In Agile Software Development, Alistair Cockburn frames them as information radiators. View (and contribute to!) the room and chart gallery for more examples.

Resources and Related Articles

[Written September, 2004.]