Question

How does agile planning account for the principle of cone of uncertainty?

Answer 1

The cone of uncertainity is used to describe the uncertainty levels at various stages of a project. In Agile project management environments, uncertainty is a key feature of software projects. The uncertainty levels become lower as decisions about the project are made considering scope of the project and approach to the project.

Answer 2

The Cone of Uncertainty is a Project Management term used to describe the level of uncertainty existing at different stages of a project.

In short, we become more certain of our estimates as we learn more about what we’re estimating.

In Agile Project Management environments, we accept that software projects are ridden with uncertainty – it comes with the territory. This uncertainty decreases as decisions are made around scope and approach – the more we understand, the more certain we can be about our estimates.

To mitigate the risk of incorrect effort estimations we reduce the precision of our estimates according to how much we know about what we’re estimating. This in turn helps us to be more accurate.