Time Boxing

1. Time Boxing Antonio Terreno ThoughtWorks UK Away Day 23 June 2007

2. Agenda <ul><li>What is time boxing? </li></ul><ul><li>Why? </li></ul><ul><li>How? </li></ul><ul><li>When? </li></ul><ul><li>Tools? </li></ul>

3. But first of all <ul><li>Why are you attending here? </li></ul>

4. Ok, Timeboxing <ul><li>Wikipedia says: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>In Project management, a timebox is a period of time in which to accomplish some task. </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>The end date is set in stone and may not be changed. </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>If the team exceeds the date, the work is considered a failure and is cancelled or rescheduled. </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Some timeboxes allow the team to adjust the scope of the task in order to meet the deadline. </li></ul></ul>

5. But I am not a PM! <ul><li>What if we think in the same way in the small? </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Split a story in tasks </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>The end is still set in stone </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>If I exceed the time I cancel the activity or I reschedule it </li></ul></ul>

6. Some history <ul><li>Rick Mugridge wrote once upon a time (2003) a paper on micro iteration in XP </li></ul><ul><li>He wrote: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Micro-iterations are missing some explicit elements from the iteration level </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Stories </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>The Planning Game to prioritize stories </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Time boxing </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><li>And then: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>For people learning to apply TDD, it may be useful to suggest time boxing of a few minutes to get them used to cycling quickly (Kent Beck) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Ron Jeffries reacted on the XP ML asking what if we always timebox micro iterations? </li></ul></ul>

7. Ok maybe is not a bad idea to time box <ul><li>I found it good with people not used to the TDD rhythm </li></ul><ul><ul><li>The Delaney experiment </li></ul></ul><ul><li>I found it good not only for this, I think that you can have value also as a skilled dev </li></ul>

8. How then <ul><li>30 min boxes </li></ul><ul><li>We have a task, we estimate how many slot to finish it. </li></ul><ul><li>If the task needs to many boxes, let’s split the task in sub tasks </li></ul><ul><li>After each slot we take a break </li></ul><ul><ul><li>No complex activities </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>5 min </li></ul></ul><ul><li>After 4-5 slots a longer break </li></ul><ul><li>No interruptions at all during the box </li></ul>

9. Timebox Format <ul><li>A post it or a story card </li></ul><ul><li>Task name, indeed </li></ul><ul><li>Slot estimation, how many slots in order to complete the task </li></ul><ul><li>Real number of slot used to complete the task </li></ul><ul><li>Keep it simple </li></ul>

10. Objectives <ul><li>Tracking progress </li></ul><ul><li>Improve Estimation </li></ul><ul><li>Avoid Distractions </li></ul><ul><ul><li>External </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Internal </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Avoid Perfectionism </li></ul><ul><li>Increase assimilation </li></ul>

11. Tracking progress <ul><li>We we’ll have a fine grain tracking of what we are doing </li></ul><ul><li>A deep knowledge of what is blocking us </li></ul><ul><li>What is speeding up us </li></ul><ul><li>What can be improved in our process </li></ul>

12. Improve Estimation <ul><li>We’ll have to estimate every morning </li></ul><ul><li>Typical day is </li></ul><ul><ul><li>8.30 allocate one box for planning and estimating </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>9.00 start with the tasks of the day </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Every day you will have to estimate what you can achieve everyday day </li></ul><ul><ul><li>The biggest consequence is that you will have a better idea of the (in)famous ideal day </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Allocate boxes for ANY task: email check, meetings, … </li></ul><ul><li>It’s easy to see then that a day with 16 boxes is impossible, that’s the ideal day, right? </li></ul>

13. Avoid distractions <ul><li>The box is not interruptible </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Team&pair communication of course is part of the task completion </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Phone calls are not </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Googleing is not (if needed to achieve the task will be timeboxed as well) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>No email check </li></ul></ul><ul><li>So external but also internal distractions </li></ul>

14. Avoid Perfectionism <ul><li>Sometimes it happens… </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Over design </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Over engineered </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Complex solutions </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Allocating a concrete number of boxes for a story should prevent to spend to much time on not valuable tasks </li></ul><ul><li>A bunch of boxes can be always allocated for refactoring, design changes and so on, if needed </li></ul><ul><li>Avoid YAGNI </li></ul>

15. Assimilation <ul><li>The break is for two main reasons </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Assimilate what we just did, it looks like that human brain works well for 20 to 40 min, it takes a bit to serialize then all the infos (I/O is slower!) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Have a sustainable pace </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>RSI guys will be happy </li></ul></ul><ul><li>The tube/bed solution, never happened to you? </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Working hard during the whole day, blocked on some silly problem </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Find the solution on the lift, in tube or in the pub </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Lift tube pub depends on how much tired you were! </li></ul></ul>

16. Consequences <ul><li>Improved Effectiveness </li></ul><ul><li>Improved Productivity </li></ul><ul><li>Improved Focus </li></ul><ul><li>Improved Consciousness </li></ul>

17. Consequences <ul><li>We are aware of time </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Time in the end is a sequence of events </li></ul></ul><ul><li>We can focus and prioritize the tasks that really mater </li></ul><ul><ul><li>MoSCoW prioritizing, but finer grain, code level </li></ul></ul><ul><li>It’s a good tool against procrastination </li></ul><ul><li>We know better what we did </li></ul><ul><li>What we accomplished and what not </li></ul>

18. It may be useful for… <ul><li>Uninteresting, boring tasks </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Well, I can do it, it’s just for 30 min! </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Very good for rolling back tasks </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Chosen a wrong solution </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Allocated N boxes </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Fail, rollback and choose another solution </li></ul></ul>

19. When? <ul><li>Dave Cheong uses Time Boxing even for Xmas gifts </li></ul><ul><li>As a Developer </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Spiking a solution </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Performance fixes </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Every day coding </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Estimations sessions </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>When working unpaired </li></ul></ul><ul><li>As a Developer at home in order to tidy my flat </li></ul><ul><li>Spare time as well </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Blogging </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Googleling </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>… </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Generally, doing activities </li></ul>

20. Tools <ul><li>Someone uses a physical device such as a Kitchen Timer </li></ul><ul><li>There are few free timers online </li></ul><ul><ul><li>It’s important that the tool will be simple </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Delaney wrote Ntimer :) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>I am trying to make it portable, it’s written in C# </li></ul></ul>

21. Open discussion <ul><li>… </li></ul>