My Top Ten Agile Planning Tips Mike Kuphal PMP, CSP J.J. Keller & Associates, Inc. Twitter: Welcome! Enjoy the Food – Session Starts at 6 pm September 22, 2011

Sponsors Fox Valley Technical College - Facilities Skyline Technologies, Inc – Food, Web-site Thank You!

Agenda IntroductionsIntroductions My Top Ten Agile Planning Tips Additional Planning Tips

Who am I? Sr. Software Development Manager of commercial software based SaaS and mobile product team at J.J. Keller & Associates, Inc. Been working with Agile techniques as a Project Manager for over 9 years Currently leading two 7-9 person Scrum teams in parallel Certifications: –Certified Scrum Practitioner (CSP) –Certified Scrum Master (CSM) –Project Management Professional (PMP) Still a Developer at heart

Introductions Name Typical Role (Dev/Manager/PM/QA) Agile Experience (months/years) Scrum, XP, KanBan, Waterfall, ?? Anything in particular you would like to have addressed tonight?

Agenda Introductions My Top Ten Agile Planning TipsMy Top Ten Agile Planning Tips Additional Planning Tips

Agile Manifesto We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value: That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. Individuals and interactions over …processes and tools. Working software over …comprehensive documentation. Customer collaboration over …contract negotiation. Responding to change over …following a plan.

The Scrum Framework Potential Deployment Sprint Review Product & Team Backlog Formation Sprint Planning 2 Parts: Selection and Decomp Daily Scrum Sprint 2-4 Weeks Team Retrospective

Image © 2007–2010 ABC Television/ABC StudiosABC TelevisionABC Studios Who are these guys? What could they possibly have to do with Agile planning?

How about these guys? What could they possibly have to do with Agile planning?

Agile Planning Tips/Insights 1. Plan/Estimate as a group

What is a Story point?

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Lets estimate the following User Stories: 1. As a tax professional, I want to be able to electronically submit a 1040ez tax return for my clients so they are compliant with tax law. 2.As a accountant, I want to be able to enter in receipt information so I can track my expenses for tax purposes. 3.As a IRS agent, I want to audit one out of every 10 electronically submitted tax forms so that I can ensure they are following the tax code.

Agile Planning Tips/Insights 1. Plan/Estimate as a group 2. Use Ideal Day Metric for User Story Estimation

Agile Planning Tips/Insights Bonus Tip: Best Practice: –User stories are estimated via a relative unit (Story points/Ideal Days/Gummy Bears/etc) in release planning. –Tasks are estimated via hours in sprint planning.

How many gumballs are in this jar?

a)50 b)125 c)250 d)400 e)I need coffee!

How many gumballs are in this jar? a)50 b)125 c)250 d)400 e)I need coffee!

Agile Planning Tips/Insights 1. Plan/Estimate as a group 2. Use Ideal Day Metric for User Story Estimation 3. Use Planning poker to group estimate

= ? How would you go about solving this problem?

Of course! Break it down into smaller units of work that can be evaluated individually.

Agile Planning Tips/Insights 1. Plan/Estimate as a group 2. Use Ideal Day Metric for User Story Estimation 3. Use Planning poker to group estimate 4. Decompose User Stories into tasks that produce deliverable units of work in ½ to 3 day timeframes

Jigsaw Puzzle problem Assumptions: Team of 5 members 100 piece puzzle 5 min to complete puzzle Possible methods to solve: 1.Method 1 –Assign each member 20 pieces –Each person works with their own pieces 2.Method 2 –Dump the puzzle in middle of group –Each person picks one tile, places it and picks another

Jigsaw Puzzle problem Assumptions: Team of 5 members (team) 100 piece puzzle (sprint backlog) 5 min to complete puzzle (sprint timebox) Possible methods to solve: 1.Method 1 (Individual work queues) –Assign each member 20 pieces –Each person works with their own pieces 2.Method 2 (Group work queue) –Dump the puzzle in middle of group –Each person picks one tile, places it and picks another

Agile Planning Tips/Insights 1. Plan/Estimate as a group 2. Use Ideal Day Metric for User Story Estimation 3. Use Planning poker to group estimate 4. Decompose User Stories into tasks that produce deliverable units of work in ½ to 3 day timeframes 5. Practice JIT task picking during the sprint

What same piece of information does each of these try to demonstrate?

Agile Planning Tips/Insights 6. Track Remaining work not Completed work

How many of you have participated in planning meetings that look similar to this?

How about this?

The ability to see and interact with the backlog as a group is vital.

Agile Planning Tips/Insights 6. Track Remaining work not Completed work 7. Visually plan

Agile Planning Tips/Insights Some common questions we ran into: How long should we expect each group planning session to last? How do we account for bug/defect fixing time? When should a sprint start? What is the optimal time frame to set for a sprint?

Agile Planning Tips/Insights 6. Track Remaining work not Completed work 7. Visually plan 8. Time box 1-2 hours of project planning per week in Sprint 9. Track Bug/Defect Remaining Work hours only when it will take more than a few hours to address the item 10. Start your Sprints on Tues/Wed/Thursday

Recap: Agile Planning Tips/Insights 1. Plan/Estimate as a group 2. Use Ideal Day Metric for User Story Estimation 3. Use Planning poker to group estimate 4. Decompose User Stories into tasks that produce deliverable units of work in ½ to 3 day timeframes 5. Practice JIT task picking during the sprint

Recap: Agile Planning Tips/Insights 6. Track Remaining work not Completed work 7. Visually plan 8. Time box 1-2 hours of project planning per week in Sprint 9. Track Bug/Defect Remaining Work hours only when it will take more than a few hours to address the item 10. Start your Sprints on Tues/Wed/Thursday

Additional Planning Tips/Insights Your turn to express any tips/insights you may have experienced that you feel might be helpful to the group.

Agile Resources Web Sites – – – Books –Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn –Agile Project Management with Scrum by Ken Schwaber –Agile and Iterative Development: A Managers Guide by Craig Larman

Questions?

Thanks for coming! Next meeting –November 16, :30 pm (Wednesday) –Fox Valley Technical College: Room B141 Mike Kuphal PMP, CSP J.J. Keller & Associates, Inc. Twitter: