Advanced Topics in Agile Planning

Mike Cohn
Norwegian Developer’s Conference
6 June 2012
Advanced
Agile Planning
1

© Copyright Mountain Goat Software
®
The planning onion
Daily
Iteration
Release
Product
Portfolio
Strategy
Team focuses here
Team focuses here
Team focuses here
2

®
Release and iteration planning
Release Plan
Iteration 2Iteration 1 Iteration 3 Iterations 4–7
Code the … 8
Test the … 12
Design a … 8
Code the … 6
Iteration Plan
Code the … 6
Decide … 4
Test the … 6
Automate … 8
Iteration Plan
3

®
What’s a good plan?
A good plan is one that supports reliable
decision-making
Will go from
We’ll be done in the third quarter
We’ll be done in December
We’ll be done 18 December
“It’s better to be
roughly right than
precisely wrong.”
—J.M. Keynes
4

®
Velocity
An iteration
4
10 1
3
Velocity = 15
5

© Copyright Mountain Goat Software®
Velocity
A useful long-term measure of the amount of
work completed per iteration
Most useful over at least a handful of iterations
0
10
20
30
40
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Velocity is measured
in the units you use
to estimate product
backlog items
Velocity
6

®
Five Planning Scenarios
A team with historical data
Fixed-date plans
Fixed-scope plans
A team with no velocity data
A team changing size
7

Calculate a conﬁdence interval from
historical data
27
34
35
38
39
40
40
41
45
90% conﬁdence
interval
# of
historical
iterations
Iterations to
throw out
from each
each end
0–7 0
8–10 1
11–12 2
13–15 3
16–17 4
18–20 5
21–22 6
23–25 7
26+ 8
Sorted Velocities
8

Extrapolate from the velocity range
Product
Backlog
Assume there
are ﬁve
iterations left
We’ll almost certainly get here (5×34=170)
The most we can realistically expect (5×41=205)
9

®
Use the online velocity
range calculator at
mountaingoatsoftware.com/tools
10

®
Fixed-date plans
Fixed-scope plans
11

®
Fixed-date planning
Three steps
1. Determine how many iterations
you have.
2. Estimate velocity as a range.
3. Use that range × the number of
iterations to partition the backlog
into Will Have, Might Have, and
Won’t Have.
12

®
Count the iterations
APRIL
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
3
10
17
24
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
MAY
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
3
10
17
24
31
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
JUNE
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
3
10
17
24
31
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
3
10
17
24
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
13

®
Determine a velocity range
0
10
20
30
40
50
StoryPoints
Iterations
30
21
25
34
25
30 29 29
14

®
Product
Backlog
Might have
Won’t have
Will have
6×25
Determine what to commit to
If you promise this
You probably won’t get
the contract
everything if you do
If you promise this
You will probably win
the contract
everything in time
15

®
Balancing risk
Low
ExpectationRisk
Delivery RiskLow High
High
Promise Just
the
Will-Haves
Promise All
the
Might-Haves
16

®
Fixed-date plans
Fixed-scope plans
17

®
Fixed scope planning
Three steps
1. Sum the product backlog
items.
2. Estimate velocity as a range.
3. Use the sum of the backlog
divided by the velocity
range to determine a date
range.
18

®
= 120 story points
}=15–20
0
5
10
15
20
25
StoryPoints
Iterations
19

®
120 ÷ 15 =
JUNE
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
3
10
17
24
31
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
3
10
17
24
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
JANUARY
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
3
10
17
24
31
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
6
13
20
27
FEBRUARY
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
2
9
16
23
3
10
17
24
MARCH
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
3
10
17
24
31
APRIL
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
3
10
17
24
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
MAY
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
3
10
17
24
31
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
JULY
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
3
10
17
24
31
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
AUGUST
5
12
19
26
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
3
10
17
24
31
4
11
18
25
120 ÷ 20 =
JUNE
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
3
10
17
24
31
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
3
10
17
24
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
JANUARY
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
3
10
17
24
31
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
6
13
20
27
FEBRUARY
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
2
9
16
23
3
10
17
24
MARCH
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
3
10
17
24
31
APRIL
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
3
10
17
24
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
MAY
6
13
20
27
7
14
21
28
1
8
15
22
29
2
9
16
23
30
3
10
17
24
31
4
11
18
25
5
12
19
26
If you promise the long
duration
You probably will not
get the contract
But it should be easy to
If you promise the short
duration
You probably get the
contract
everything in time
20

®
Ranges
Notice in both cases we had a range
For a ﬁxed date project, use a scope
range:
“By that date you’ll have all of these features
and some of these.”
For a ﬁxed-scope project, use a date
range:
“It will take us between 6 and 8 iterations to
deliver all of those features.”
21

®
The impending tradeshow
Your company develops tools for managing agile
projects.
You’ve ﬁnished version 1.0 (on time, of course).
Now the boss needs a new version for the big
trade show that is 4 iterations away.
• Which features can you “guarantee” will be in
for the trade show?
• Which features are likely to be in? Use the following
user stories,
estimates and
velocities.
22

®
Past velocities
Historiccal Data
Iteration Velocity
1 20
2 14
3 23
4 18
5 25
6 30
7 12
8 22
9 15
10 23
Your estimates
23

®
Product backlog item Estimate
1. As the product owner I want to drag items onto a release
burndown chart and see the impact to the release date.
20
2. As a user at a company with lots of cash, I want your product to
support touch screens so I can put a large one in our team
room.
13
3. As a user I would like performance to be about twice as fast as
now during peak use periods.
20
4. As a team member, I’d like to be able to do online planning
poker estimating right inside the tool.
13
5. As a third party, I would like an SOA interface so that I can
integrate my product with yours.
8
6. As a team member I want RSS support for all changes to tasks
or user stories so that I’m notified.
8
7. As the product owner, I want a new report that shows
differences in the product backlog between different time
periods.
3
8. As a team member I’d like to define templates of tasks that
recur for lots of different stories so that I can reuse them
13
24

®
Fixed-date plans
Fixed-scope plans
25

®
Forecast an initial velocity
Get the team together as though there were going
to plan a real iteration (2–4 weeks)
Iteration planning involves
Breaking product backlog items (features) into
tasks
Estimating the hours for each task
Repeating until the iteration feels full
See how many points are represented by the work
they select
Consider planning a second iteration this way
26

®
Consider this team
Person Hours/Day Hours / Iteration
Sergey 4–6 40–60
Yuri 4–6 40–60
Carina 2–3 20–30
Tootal 100–150
27

®
Establishing their velocity
100–150 hours per iteration
Capacity
Code… 12
Design … 6
Test … 8
Decide … 8
Automate … 12
… 22
46
22
Story Points
As a frequent
ﬂyer …
3
As a visitor … 5
As a vacation
planner …
5
As a frequent
ﬂyer …
2
Code… 8
Test … 6
Design … 12
Test … 5
… 48
31
48
28

®
Turn the point estimate into a range
If you don’t have historical data
Take a wild guess, perhaps:
+/– 10% for a known team working in a known
domain with known technologies
+/– 50% if all that is unknown
If you have historical data from other
teams
Calculate the relative standard deviation of
those teams
29

®
Using data from other teams
Teamm A
Iteration Velocity
1 20
2 28
3 24
4 16
5 18
6 23
7 26
8 21
Team A
Mean
Standard
Deviation
22 3.8
Relative standard
deviation
3.8 / 22 = 17%
30

Product Backlog
Will Have
Might Have
Won’t Have
Estimated
velocity = 11
13
9
119%
81%
Adjust velocity
by ±19%
multiply by
number of
iterations
31

®
Fixed-date plans
Fixed-scope plans
32

®
Initial
Team
Size
New
Team
Size
Iteration
+1
Iteration
+2
Iteration
+3
6 7 –20% –4% +12%
6 7 0% –6% +15%
7 5 –12% –8% –8%
8 6 –20% –20% –16%
7 8 –15%
Track across
the entire
organization.
Track velocity when size changes
33

®
Initial
Team
Size
New
Team
Size
Iteration
+1
Iteration
+2
Iteration
+3
6 7 –20% –4% +12%
6 7 0% –6% +15%
7 5 –12% –8% –8%
… … … … …
Impact of going from 6–7 people
Iteration
Average
Velocity Change
1 –10%
2 –5%
3+ +13%
34

®
mike@mountaingoatsoftware.com
www.mountaingoatsoftware.com
twitter: mikewcohn
(888) 61-AGILE
Mike Cohn
35

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