Wide Band Delphi (WBD) in Agile software engineering is a technique used for estimating and reaching consensus on various aspects of a project, such as effort estimation, feature prioritization, or risk assessment. It's a structured communication method designed to harness the collective intelligence of a group of experts or stakeholders. Here's how it works:
- Formation of Expert Panel: A group of experts or stakeholders relevant to the project is assembled. These individuals should have diverse perspectives and expertise related to the project's domain.
- Initial Input: Each expert independently provides their estimates or opinions on the topic under consideration. For example, if estimating the effort required for a particular task, each expert would estimate the effort independently without consulting others.
- Collation and Summary: The facilitator collects the estimates or opinions from all experts and summarizes them without revealing individual identities. This summary may include statistical measures like the mean, median, mode, or range of the estimates.
- Feedback and Discussion: The facilitator shares the summary with the experts, allowing them to see the range of opinions and discuss the reasons behind the differences. This discussion phase helps participants understand each other's perspectives and potentially revise their estimates based on new insights.
- Re-estimation: After the discussion, experts may revise their initial estimates based on the insights gained from the discussion. This process can be repeated iteratively until a consensus is reached or until the estimates converge within an acceptable range.
- Consensus and Finalization: Once a consensus is reached or the estimates converge, the final estimates are recorded and used for planning or decision-making purposes.
Wide Band Delphi is particularly useful in Agile software engineering because it allows teams to leverage the collective wisdom of diverse stakeholders, fosters transparency and collaboration, and helps manage uncertainty and complexity in project planning and execution. Additionally, by allowing for anonymity in the initial estimation phase, WBD encourages participants to provide honest assessments without fear of bias or influence from others.
Wideband Delphi
