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Lecture 25, Tue 12/01

Tuesday: Peer Evaluation, Points Poker

Peer Evaluation with CATME

We’ll do these after lecture on Thursday.

I originally said today, but then realized that I don’t have an up-to-date spreadsheet of the team changes. So we are gathering that information today during Lecture. Please see the post in each of your team’s slack channels.

You’ll be asked to provide feedback on each member of your team. There is an oppotunity to provide peer-to-peer ratings and comments; the comments are anonymous, but visible to your peers. There is also an opportunity to provide anonymous feedback to the instructor.

I haven’t done this before with this tool, so I am not sure how it will go. Other instructors have recommended it, and said that it helps improve accountability and fairness. So I’m giving it a try.

There is a “multiplier” that can be applied to the team grade that can bump up individuals that are consistently rated by their peers as outstanding performers, and but can also reduce the grade of underperformers. Again, I have no experience with this, so we are in unchartered waters. I plan to be conservative about how drastic an effect that would have on grades on this first run, so let’s say that it won’t raise or lower anyone’s “project grade” by more than a letter grade (10%). That means the effect on your course grade would be, at most, + or - 4%.

Points Poker

I mentioned points poker earlier, but I think we are going to punt on that and make it optional instead of required.

Most of the stories we’ve put out there so far are 4 points stories or more. Many of them can be broken up into mutiple 2 point stories, or even multiple 4 points stories.

The important thing, though, at this point, is to start making forward progress.

Many agile teams have found is that estimating up front is not always a good use of time; the estimates are often wildly inaccurate.

Time to work