Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers SE Radio 599: Jason C. McDonald on Quantified Tasks
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Jan 17, 2024 Jason C. McDonald discusses the flaws of story points and introduces his alternative called Quantified Tasks. They explore various scales used for measuring tasks in agile development. The concept of quantified tasks and how they capture effort in software development is explained. The pushback encountered during implementation and the use of quantified tasks for bug detection are discussed. The benefits and challenges of using quantified tasks to identify problems within a team or company are explored. Learn how to implement and use the quantified tasks system.
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Story Points and Their Origins
- Story points, originating from Scrum, aim to estimate effort, not time, but often become time-based in practice.
- They measure tasks relative to each other, lacking standardization and objectivity like pre-metric systems.
Story Point Scales and Uncertainty
- Common story point scales include numbers, Fibonacci sequences, and t-shirt sizes.
- Exponential scales like Fibonacci accommodate greater uncertainty in larger tasks.
Origin of Quantified Tasks
- Jason C. McDonald's 'Quantified Tasks' originated from Scott Rosenberg's 'Dreaming in Code' observation about 'black hole' tasks.
- Experienced engineers can often identify these time-consuming tasks early on.