"ramp up" task?

[dotnetguy]

Hello - How do you allocate ramp up tasks? For example, I've worked on teams before where if a task is complex, unknown, risky or big then the team creates a research task to get a better understanding of the task at hand.

When a new person joins the team there is always some type of ramp up required to get the new team member up to speed. At a minimum I'd estimate 1 hour for an established team member to provide an overview of the current system and 1 hour for the new team member to attend the overview of the current system. So how do you normally allocate this type of task for a Sprint? Do you allocate 1 hour for the presenter and 1 hour for the presentee as a "ramp up task"? Seems like a logical approach.

I think most scrum tracking systems like TFS, Rally, etc don't allow multiple resource allocations for a single task. So I'm curious how you go about associating these tasks/hours for ramp up?

[LESLIE SCANTLING]

If we have too much 'unknown' for some upcoming work, we put in a Research story, and estiamte it's complexity accordingly.  The output of that research is usually clarified requirements or defined approach for upcoming work, to reduce the ambiguity.  This is at the story level.
 
To allocate for 'ramp up' of a new person, it is just a measure of complexity for the work, but typically it will be notched up higher to account for extra effort to train a new person.  This again would be at the story level for the work.
 
As far as the tasks, I just ask the team how THEY want to account for it, since their charter is to keep their work visible. 
 
Just my 1.5 cents..
 

> Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2013 20:06:00 -0800
> From: andrew.d....@gmail.com
> To: scruma...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [Scrum] "ramp up" task?

>
> Hello - How do you allocate ramp up tasks? For example, I've worked on teams before where if a task is complex, unknown, risky or big then the team creates a research task to get a better understanding of the task at hand.
>
> When a new person joins the team there is always some type of ramp up required to get the new team member up to speed. At a minimum I'd estimate 1 hour for an established team member to provide an overview of the current system and 1 hour for the new team member to attend the overview of the current system. So how do you normally allocate this type of task for a Sprint? Do you allocate 1 hour for the presenter and 1 hour for the presentee as a "ramp up task"? Seems like a logical approach.
>
> I think most scrum tracking systems like TFS, Rally, etc don't allow multiple resource allocations for a single task. So I'm curious how you go about associating these tasks/hours for ramp up?
>

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[dotnetguy]

So do you typically find yourself having a 1 hour task for "ramp up - presenter" and a 1 hour task for "ramp up - presentee"? This seems like a descriptive yet concise breakdown of the typical ramp up work that needs to be done for a new team member....

[LESLIE SCANTLING]

To be honest, I don't really coach the teams into that level of detail on tasks.  My general guidance is that when it comes to tasks they should have 'enough' so they feel like they know what the work is and it is visible.  But I generally see then be more general that what you are describing.  Like if the team felt like they needed a task for some sort of brainstorming session, it would be one task and they would lump it together and burn it down as one event and not assign one persons name (unless one person was taking responsibility to own it in name, but its not necessary).  If a new team member was taking on a task that they needed training on, I would typically only see a task for the new member, and not a 'sidecar' task for the person who might be guiding them.  But again, I completely leave this up to the team to determine.  We don't do any data gathering or tracking at the hour and task level and it is purely used to create the burndown.
 

> Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2013 20:28:28 -0800
> From: andrew.d....@gmail.com
> To: scruma...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: RE: [Scrum] "ramp up" task?

>
> So do you typically find yourself having a 1 hour task for "ramp up - presenter" and a 1 hour task for "ramp up - presentee"? This seems like a descriptive yet concise breakdown of the typical ramp up work that needs to be done for a new team member....
>

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> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Scrum Alliance - transforming the world of work." group.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/scrumalliance/-/sh-AA-_tqRQJ.

[Nirmaljeet Malhotra]

In my team, we typically do spikes to plan for any unknowns which helps the team to be better prepared to plan. We completely refrain from planning or working on unknowns.

As for ramp up, we have a defined set of tasks for ramp up with defined estimates based on historical data. This helps us plan (for example 40 hrs) for any new team member joining and we also assign a buddy to the new member who supports the new team member get onboarded. This has worked well for us thus far.

Regards,
Nirmaljeet S Malhotra (CSM, CSP, PMP)

--
Nirmaljeet Malhotra, PMP

[Ron Jeffries]

Hello Andrew,

On Jan 2, 2013, at 11:06 PM, dotnetguy <andrew.d....@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello - How do you allocate ramp up tasks?  For example, I've worked on teams before where if a task is complex, unknown, risky or big then the team creates a research task to get a better understanding of the task at hand.

What do you mean when you say "allocate" a task? What does allocating give you? What does it give the team? What does it give the people "allocated"? 

And what prevents you from having two tasks, "get ramped up" and "ramp john up"?

Ron Jeffries

www.XProgramming.com

There's no word for accountability in Finnish. 

Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted. 

--Pasi Sahlberg

[George Dinwiddie]

Andrew,

On 1/2/13 11:06 PM, dotnetguy wrote:
> Hello - How do you allocate ramp up tasks? For example, I've worked
> on teams before where if a task is complex, unknown, risky or big
> then the team creates a research task to get a better understanding
> of the task at hand.

I would allocate a particular length of time (an hour, a day) to answer
the question sufficiently to proceed on the work. If that deadline is
reached without an answer, then a decision has to be made whether to
take another period of time to continue research, or to change
directions. I would involve the P.O. in these discussions.

>
> When a new person joins the team there is always some type of ramp up
> required to get the new team member up to speed. At a minimum I'd
> estimate 1 hour for an established team member to provide an overview
> of the current system and 1 hour for the new team member to attend
> the overview of the current system. So how do you normally allocate
> this type of task for a Sprint? Do you allocate 1 hour for the
> presenter and 1 hour for the presentee as a "ramp up task"? Seems
> like a logical approach.

New team members, like a myriad of other things, are overhead to the
work creating the system. As Fred Brooks noted many years ago, adding
personnel slows things down at first. That will likely be noticed in the
velocity, but I see no need to track them otherwise.

>
> I think most scrum tracking systems like TFS, Rally, etc don't allow
> multiple resource allocations for a single task. So I'm curious how
> you go about associating these tasks/hours for ramp up?

Most scrum tracking systems make simple things difficult. They also
encourage tracking things that don't matter. I suggest only tracking
things that matter to the delivery of the system. Utilization is not one
of those things.

- George

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* George Dinwiddie * http://blog.gdinwiddie.com
Software Development http://www.idiacomputing.com
Consultant and Coach http://www.agilemaryland.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[John Miller]

Andrew,

I am with Leslie on this. Let the team figure it out, at the least, be involved in helping to figure it out. It will take more than an hour, and, it will probably be more of a strategy throughout several sprints (such as pairing), not a explicit task for ramping up.  Have a "story" to ramp up the new member, let them task it out. 

As a SM, I would ensure that any impediments are removed for the new team member, buy working with management and other support areas to ensure the new member (if they are a new employee) has everything they need to get started .

My perspective, if I was a coach for the team, is that this is a new team now, once you added a new member. You are back to the Forming stage. It might be a good time for a quick reset, looking at the team working agreement, team values, vision, and DOD, as an entire team (the team has these, I hope). Performing a fresh activity for the team to connect and reconnect, such as Journey lines or market of skills (that might uncover the new member has never worked on an Agile team, and might trigger tasks for her to learn Agile/Scrum). 

Good luck.

Thanks,

John