Agile Workshop: Handling Changing Requirements

Adapting to Changing Requirements Short Iterations Frequent Releases, Customer Collaboration

Balachander Swaminathan

March 20, 2009

The Idea of Adaptive Planning .....

Adaptive Planning

Is planning to deliver, not delivering to a plan

Change can be accommodated, and is expected

The impact of change is visible to all stakeholders

Is repeated throughout the project lifecycle

Is a simple process, transparent to the whole team

Balances different levels of precision/granularity

Release Planning (weeks) and Quarterly Cycles

Iteration Planning (days) and Weekly Cycles

Adaptive Planning: Change in outlook Frequent Releases © ThoughtWorks 2009 Fix / Integrate $ Test Code Design Specifications Use Cases / Functional Specs Requirements Gathering Project Plan/Estimation $ Inception $ $ $

Decomposing a release… Prioritized Release Level Stories Iterations Stories Completed Business Value Delivered © ThoughtWorks 2009 Release X

Release Plan Project Release Plan Release X Release X+1 Dev. QA Dev. QA Dev. QA Dev. QA Dev. QA Dev. QA Dev. QA Dev. QA Dev. QA Dev. QA Dev. QA Dev. QA Scheduled release Anal. Anal. Anal. Anal. Anal. Anal. Anal. Anal. Anal. Anal. Anal. Anal. Scheduled * release Scheduled release Scheduled milestone Scheduled milestone *Typical for large companies which have their own final QA (UAT) and Deployment setup. Scheduled release will factor in final QA and Deployment Iteration © ThoughtWorks 2009 Iteration

Segregating Stories into Release Buckets …..

Segregation of Stories

Segregate stories into releases

Each release provides business value

I 1 …….I n I 1 …….I n I 1 …….I n Release x Release x+1 Release x+2 © ThoughtWorks 2009 S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S

Iteration Execution for a Single Release

Iteration plan for only the next iteration

Retain flexibility to prioritize future stories

Done stories are done (new story to change)

I 1 …….I n Iterations Done In Progress Next Future Release x © ThoughtWorks 2009 S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S

Changing Priorities… Changing Priorities Additions - Deletions - Change with New Story © ThoughtWorks 2009 S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S

Changing Priorities … Including Release Boundaries New Plan Original Plan Iterations Release x Release x+1 Release x+2 Release x Release x+1 Release x+3 Release x+2 © ThoughtWorks 2009 S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S