Agile Estimation & Planning by Bachan Anand

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

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

Overview of Agile and Scrum


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

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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

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Iteration Sprint Cycle

Vision and Product


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

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The Vision Board

- Visible to the team - Maintained by the

Product Owner/ Customer

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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)

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Agile planning


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

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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

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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

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“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

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Different levels of planning

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Agile Planning Lifecycle Summary

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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?

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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?

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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)?

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Release planning


Release Planning

• How many iterations?

• How much scope?

• At what costs?

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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

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Sizing Release/Product Backlog

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Product Backlog (Stories) Iteration Backlog (Tasks)

Story Points or Ideal Days

Hours

Estimate Size – Derive Duration

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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

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• Shows progress across Sprints

• X-axis is the number of Sprints

• Y-axis is the total number of stories

Release planning Release Burndown

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Iteration planning


• 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

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• 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 …

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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

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Daily planning


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

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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

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• 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

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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

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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

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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

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Learn By Doing

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

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

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Experiential Training

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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

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User groups /Communities

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

• Online User Groups Scrum Alliance

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Q & A

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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

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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/

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Thank you !

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

and-resources/

Contact Info Bachan Anand [email protected] 949-232-8900 http://www.linkedin.com/in/bachan

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Agile Estimation & Planning by Bachan Anand

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Transcript of Agile Estimation & Planning by Bachan Anand