working on sprints with team

[itay]

Hello everybody,

I am the team leader of a development team in my company.

We decided to check scrum as our way of work and I don't understand something.

We would like to work with time estimation...

We would like to give each sprint 1 week.

I have a team of 4 developers...

Let's say that each one gonna make his estimate and we will push all of the assignments we want to the next sprint.

What I don't understand is that:

The sprint needs to be filled up by 1 week of issues.

But, I have 4 developers so generally the sprint need to contain in total 4 weeks of issues, no? (1 week for each developer - which is the same week).

Isn't it better to create a sprint for each developer? do I miss something in here?

If I will put all of the issues to the sprint the time remaining will be 4 weeks for a 1-week sprint, no?

Thanks!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

A sprint is a time box for your team, not individual developers. 

For each sprint, estimate how much the team can do in that time, and pull in issues that add up to (close to) that amount.

[itay]

Hi,

So I don't understand how can I measure my developers?

Theoretically, one developer can do all of the work for that week and the rest can sit down. he will do a work of one week that was inserted to that sprint and that is all.

Also, The estimation total amount of time should be at max equals to the sprint time?

[Warren]

To give a numerical example which might make it clearer :

Assume each developer works 6 hours per day, that would be 30 hours per week per developer. Let's say 3 developers are at work for the whole week, but one developer is on leave for 1 day.

3 x 30 = 90 hours (for the devs who are in all week)

1 x 24 = 24 hours (for the dev who will be on leave)

So total capacity (available hours) is 90 + 24 = 114 hours.

You would bring in items that add up to around 114 hours. 

This will ensure that all 4 developers are busy for that week

I hope that this helps you to understand it

[itay]

Ok, now it is more clear. Thanks!

So it means that the number of work hours in total can be more than one week because the developers work in parallel and its ok for JIRA and the sprint.

I have read in some places that it is much better to work with story points rather than hour estimation.

Can you explain What is it, Why is it better and how do we give points to issues?

Thanks!

[Warren]

Yes, many teams work using Story Points. I've put 2 articles below from Mike Cohn, the first explains what SPs are and the second one is how to use SPs. 

https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/what-are-story-points

https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/agile/planning-poker

[itay]

Thanks a lot! I will read it