The Great Panel Debate – Estimation: Separating Philosophy from Practice

SAFe Release Train Engineer at CA Technologies

Laura Skosnik

This month’s yvrTesting session will be in a debate format, discussing real world ideas and experiences with estimates. We all know there are times where estimates are essential and others where they are a complete waste of time. How do you know which is which? How does your organization approach them?

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what our industry expert panelists will be discussing. Please post your ideas for questions, and we have room for one more panelists if you know someone.

The current roster is:

• Jessica Evans - Director, Project Services - Open Road ( https://ca.linkedin.com/in/jessicaevans )

• Mike Hyrcyk – Director of Quality - Hootsuite (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikehrycyk)

• Sean Wilson – Engineering Program Manager - EA ( https://ca.linkedin.com/in/jseanwilson )

• Laura Skosnik – SAFe Release Train Engineer - CA Technologies
( https://ca.linkedin.com/in/lauraskosnik )

Full bios below.

In the past, this topic has sparked some heated debates so I will be moderating the session and am excited to learn more about a topic that, to some, is highly controversial.

See you all in a few weeks!

Jessica Evans - Hailing from the world of front-line tech support and software testing, Jessica's career moved towards business analysis and project management. She's a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP) with diverse experience as a project manager, project coach and account manager. As Director of Project Services at OpenRoad, Jessica spearheads all areas of the project management practice, bringing an eye for the big picture and the ability to balance a project’s technical and creative needs to meet business objectives.

Mike Hrycyk - has been trapped in the world of quality since he first did user acceptance testing 17 years ago. He has survived all of the different levels and a wide spectrum of technologies and environments to become the quality dynamo that he is today. Mike believes in creating a culture of quality throughout software production and tries hard to create teams that hold this ideal and advocate it to the rest of their workmates. Mike is currently the Director of Quality for Hootsuite, but has previously worked in parking, manufacturing, web photo retail, music delivery kiosks and at a railroad. Intermittently, he blogs about quality at www.qaisdoes.com.

Sean Wilson - For the past 17 years, Sean has worked directly in software development and testing. Sean started his career on a more technical track, gravitating towards white box test and automation developer in test roles. His focus since moving into management has been on improving how testing is done and how test professionals can deliver increased value to a company within the constraints of limited time and money.

During his career, Sean has earned a track record of success in driving positive change in software development processes, and in improving organizational readiness to release predictably with desired features and superior quality. His professional mandate has always been to achieve exceptional rather than expected results.

Laura Skosnik is a veteran of the web and mobile industry. As a developer, she was part of one of the earliest web teams in Vancouver for BC TEL. She has worked on many top clients including Nintendo, P90x, Walmart, Intel and Pfizer in companies such as Blast Radius, Atimi Software, and Appnovation. She also co-founded a web services company (AGLOBALWAY) and a consulting company (Thinking Maven). Laura suffers from some alphabet soup and is a PMP, CSM, PMI-ACP, SA and a CSP (points if you know what all of those are). Laura is a board member for Agile Vancouver and an instructor for PMI. She is currently consulting as a SAFe Release Train Engineer at CA Technologies.