Agile Estimation and Planning

Prepared by Bachan Anand

We will be starting at 12:00 PM PST/ 3:00 PM EST

Please dial in to (218) 895-4640 PIN: 3289145 Or Dial using VOIP

Agenda

• Overview of Agile and Scrum • Vision and Product • Agile planning • Release Planning • Iteration Planning • Daily Planning • Q&A

2

Please dial in to (218) 895-4640 PIN: 3289145

Overview of Agile and Scrum

Please dial in to (218) 895-4640 PIN: 3289145

Overview of Agile and Scrum Agile Manifesto

• Agile is a set of values: ▫ Individuals and interactions over processes and

tools ▫ Working software (Products) over

comprehensive documentation ▫ Customer collaboration over contract

negotiation ▫ Responding to change over following a

plan

4

Please dial in to (218) 895-4640 PIN: 3289145

Overview of Agile and Scrum Agile Principles

• Highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software/products

• Welcome changing requirements • Deliver working software (product)

frequently • Business people and developers must work

together daily throughout the project

5

Please dial in to (218) 895-4640 PIN: 3289145

Overview of Agile and Scrum Agile Principles

• Build projects around motivated individuals • Most efficient and effective method of

conveying information is face-to-face conversation

• Working software (product) is the primary measure of progress

• Agile processes promote sustainable development (maintain a constant pace indefinitely)

6

Please dial in to (218) 895-4640 PIN: 3289145

Overview of Agile and Scrum Agile Principles …cont’d

• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility

• Simplicity (art of maximizing amount of work not done) is essential

• Best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams

• At regular intervals, team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts

http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html

7

Please dial in to (218) 895-4640 PIN: 3289145

Overview of Agile and Scrum What is Scrum

• Scrum is an Agile framework that supports lightweight processes that emphasize: ▫  Incremental deliveries ▫  Quality of Product ▫  Continuous improvement ▫  Discovery of people’s potential

• Scrum is simple to understand, but requires discipline in order to be successful

• Scrum is not a methodology

8

Overview of Agile and Scrum Foundations of Scrum

• Empiricism ▫  Detailed up-front planning and defined processes are

replaced by just-in-time Inspect and Adapt cycles • Self-Organization ▫  Small teams manage their own workload and organize themselves

around clear goals and constraints • Prioritization ▫  Do the next right thing

• Rhythm ▫  Allows teams to avoid daily noise and focus on delivery

• Collaboration ▫  Leaders and customers work with the Team, rather than directing

them

9

Overview of Agile and Scrum Core Values

•  Transparency ▫  Everything about a project is visible to everyone

•  Commitment ▫  Be willing to commit to a goal

•  Courage ▫  Have the courage to commit, to act, to be open and to expect

respect •  Focus ▫  Focus all of your efforts and skills on doing the work

that you have committed to doing •  Respect ▫  Respect and trust the different people who comprise a team

10

11

Iteration Sprint Cycle

Vision and Product

Please dial in to (218) 895-4640 PIN: 3289145

The Product Vision----Why?

• The Vision serves as a common bonding to the Project, every participant needs to understand and share it, to be able to contribute effectively

13

The Vision Board

- Visible to the team - Maintained by the

Product Owner/ Customer

14

Role: Product Owner

• Thought Leader and Visionary • Steers the Product Vision (for example, with

Story Mapping) • Prioritizes the Goals - User Stories • Maintains the Product Backlog with the team • Accepts the Working Product (on behalf of the

customer)

15

Agile planning

Please dial in to (218) 895-4640 PIN: 3289145

Why Plan?

• Gives the Product Owner & Customer Opportunity to explain the vision, goals and requirements.

• Helps in fulfillment of customer specification. • Communicate the bigger picture to team

members • Keep team's focus on what can be achieved

17

Why We Need Plans? • To predict the future

•  To communicate our expectation

• To be able to compare our predictions with the reality we are facing

• To guide us to the desired situation/state

18

What is a good plan? ► A good plan is one that supports reliable decision-making

► One that increases in accuracy and precision over time  We’ll be done in the fourth quarter  We’ll be done in November  We’ll be done November 7th

19

“It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.”

-John Maynard Keynes

What makes planning “Agile”? • Focus on planning – not the plan

• Re plan based on reality

• Involve people who are doing the work in planning

• Balance benefit and investment

• Adaptive to change and learning

• Plans are easily changed

• Planning is continuous throughout the project

20

Different levels of planning

21

Agile Planning Lifecycle Summary

22

The Goals Of Release Planning •  A time question: How many iterations approximately will we need to

deliver this rough scope having the resources we might have?

•  Scope question: How much of this rough product backlog can we do within this range of sprints and having the resources we might have?

•  Resources question: What resources do we need to accomplish this rough scope within this range of sprints?

•  How rough can this be? What level of accuracy do we need?

•  What things do we need to know to make each of these predictions?

23

The Goals Of Iteration Planning •  Duration is fixed.

•  Resources are fixed and dedicated.

•  Scope is open for discussions: how many backlog items (stories) can we do during the sprint?

•  What level of accuracy do we need here?

•  What we need to know to make the prediction?

24

The Goals Of Daily Planning •  Why we need this planning?

•  How formal should this level of planning be?

•  Who participated in Daily planning?

•  Should you do it more often?

•  Why is this usually out of scope in project running by a predictive process (e.g. waterfall)?

25

Release planning

Please dial in to (218) 895-4640 PIN: 3289145

Release Planning

• How many iterations?

• How much scope?

• At what costs?

27

Estimating Backlog

• Backlog items expressed as User Stories • Team estimates the Product Backlog • Estimated in relative size • Estimated 1 or 2 days before start of your

iteration • Discussing during the estimation more

important that the estimates • Planning Poker

28

Sizing Release/Product Backlog

29

Product Backlog (Stories) Iteration Backlog (Tasks)

Story Points or Ideal Days

Hours

Estimate Size – Derive Duration

30

Velocity

• A rate at which the team is able to convert product backlog items into working product.

• Measured for each iteration • Expressed in relative size ▫ Story points ▫ Number of Stories

• Used as a reference by teams when committing for the next Iteration

31

• Shows progress across Sprints

• X-axis is the number of Sprints

• Y-axis is the total number of stories

Release planning Release Burndown

32

Iteration planning

Please dial in to (218) 895-4640 PIN: 3289145

• System requirements formulated as one or more sentences in the everyday or business language of the user ▫ As a <user>, I would like <function> so that I get

<value>

• Each User Story has an associated Acceptance Criteria that is used to determine if the Story is completed

Iteration planning Spirit behind User Stories

34

•  Independent ▫  Not overlap in concept and be able to schedule and implement them in any order

•  Negotiable ▫  Not an explicit contract for features; rather, details will be co-created by Product Owner and

Team

•  Valuable ▫  Add business value

•  Estimated ▫  Just enough to help the Product Owner rank and schedule the story's implementation

•  Sized Appropriately ▫  Need to be small, such as a few person-days

•  Testable

▫  A characteristic of good requirements

Iteration planning

A Good User Story …

35

Iteration Planning

• Select the top PB items for the iteration ▫ PO’s involvement is key and mandatory

• Team builds the task list for completing the stories

• Output in an Iteration Plan or Sprint Backlog • Team makes a commitment at end of the

planning session

36

Daily planning

Please dial in to (218) 895-4640 PIN: 3289145

Daily planning: Daily Standup

• Meetings held in same location, same time, every day

• Time boxed at 15 minutes • Helps the “team” to plan everyday • Each Team member speaks to: ▫ What did I accomplish in the last 24 hours ▫ What do I plan to accomplish in the next 24 hours ▫ Any impediments getting in the way of my work

38

Daily Planning: Taskboard • Active visual indicator

of flow of work • Should be visible to

team members at all times

• Kept current by the team

• Reflection of Iteration commitment vrs reality

39

• Shows daily progress in the Sprint

• X-axis is the number of days in the Sprint

• Y-axis is the number of remaining stories

Daily planning : Burndown

40

What is in it for me? (Customer)

• As a customer , I am ▫ Kept closer to reality of the project

during execution phase ▫ Involved in Release planning and

prioritization ▫ Able to make priority changes at

Iteration boundaries

41

What is in it for me? (Leadership)

• As a Leader , I want

▫ To understand progress in terms of real progress made on product .

▫ Better deal with changing business priorities

42

What is in it for me? ( Team Member)

• As a team member, I want

▫ Able to make a realistic commitments ▫ Provide estimated based of past data ▫ Right balance between planning and

doing

43

Learn By Doing

• Apply few practices at a time • Understand the values and

foundations • Inspect and Adapt • Experience the Joy of Being Agile

44

Experiential Training

45

Pay-it-forward / Donation only -- 1 day Agile & Scrum Training

- July 15th – Irvine - July 18th – Seattle - July 22 nd – Simi

Valley - July 23rd – Phoenix - July 27th – Boston

- July 29th – New York - July 30th – Boulder - August 12th - Irvine - August 26th – Atlanta - August 26th – SFO - Sep 30th - Boston

46

User groups /Communities

• APLN – Agile Project Leadership Network • Scrum Alliance – Scrum User Groups

• Online User Groups Scrum Alliance

47

Q & A

48

Few thoughts….

• Planning is important • Plan as often and spend as less time

as possible each time • Plan changes, embrace reality and

change your plan every time you plan

49

Donation only 1 day Trainings ▫  Irvine – July 15th

  http://agile.conscires.com/1-day-agile-scrum-training-irvine-05/ ▫  Seattle – July 18th

  http://agile.conscires.com/agile-scrum-training-seattle-03/ ▫  Boston – July 27th

  http://agile.conscires.com/1-day-agile-scrum-training-boston-03/

▫  New York– July 29th

  http://agile.conscires.com/1-day-agile-scrum-training-newjersy-01/

50

Thank you !

• More Resources at ▫ http://agile.conscires.com/suggested-reading-list-

and-resources/

Contact Info Bachan Anand Bachan.anand@conscires.com 949-232-8900 http://www.linkedin.com/in/bachan

51