The project started out normally with velocity starting to converge around the third and fourth iteration. By the fifth or sixth iteration ve-locity started to drop off. The project was in serious trouble by the ninth iteration. The next step is figuring out why.

7.6 What Goes Wrong?

Finding the root cause for a velocity trend change can be difficult. In this project, we had a problem with quality which was indicated by an increase in the number of stories to fix defects. This was obvious when reviewing the story cards. When I went back to review the cards for this chapter, it struck me that the task estimates seem shorter as the project progressed. While I don’t recommend tracking average task length in general, the graph illuminates the problem in this case:

Troubled Project’s Average Task Length Graph





	The project started out normally with velocity starting to converge around the third and fourth iteration. By the fifth or sixth iteration ve-locity started to drop off. The project was in serious trouble by the ninth iteration. The next step is figuring out why.

	7.6 What Goes Wrong? Finding the root cause for a velocity trend change can be difficult. In this project, we had a problem with quality which was indicated by an increase in the number of stories to fix defects. This was obvious when reviewing the story cards. When I went back to review the cards for this chapter, it struck me that the task estimates seem shorter as the project progressed. While I don’t recommend tracking average task length in general, the graph illuminates the problem in this case: Troubled Project’s Average Task Length Graph Copyright © 2004 Robert Nagler 51 All rights reserved nagler@extremeperl.org