Agile Estimating Planning With Scrum, Kharkov

Agile Estimating and Planning with SCRUM A short version of a two-day class. Details are available at www.scrumguides.com Kharkov, 1 Feb 2008 © SCRUMguides www.scrumguides.com Alexey Krivitsky, Tim Yevgrashyn

Our Agenda Introduction 10-minutes intro to SCRUM Plans vs. Planning Levels of Planning User Stories as Agile Requirements Release Planning in SCRUM Sprint Planning in SCRUM Agile Estimating and Planning 2 ©SCRUMguides

Who We Are Ukrainian Agile community www.agileukraine.org SCRUM trainings and coaching www.scrumguides.com SCRUM Certifications (CSM) www.scrum.com.ua Agile Estimating and Planning 3 ©SCRUMguides

SCRUM What’s in it for ya? Who of you has been doing SCRUM? Who of you is going to use SCRUM? Who of you is never going to use it? ;) Agile Estimating and Planning 4 ©SCRUMguides

What is this Training About? Theory of project planning. Different levels of project planning. Agile techniques for size and estimations. Agile techniques for duration estimations. this all is presented under SCRUM jam Agile Estimating and Planning 5 ©SCRUMguides

Our Ground Rules: Can we all agree on this please? No usage of laptops (pocket PCs, smart-phones) yes we know how hard it is … ☺ Cell phones on silent mode if you need to talk, please leave the class for a while Be active, participate use our knowledge and your time to maximize your returns Don’t interrupt each other, one dialog per time raise your hand if you wish to talk, the moderator will queue you up Learn by asking questions we promise to address all your questions Thank You! Agile Estimating and Planning 6 ©SCRUMguides

Levels of Learning Level 1: Shu – learn the rules “Do this, don’t do that” Level 2: Ha – abide the rules “You know how to do it one way, but there might be other ways. Learn when to follow each” Level 3: Ri – dissolve the rules “I’m not sure how you call the way we work, we just get stuff done!” This class is designed at Shu level with some Ha elements. You can reach the next levels by practicing. Agile Estimating and Planning 7 ©SCRUMguides

Our Agenda Introduction 10-minutes intro to SCRUM 20 minutes :) Plans vs. Planning Levels of Planning User Stories as Agile Requirements Release Planning in SCRUM Sprint Planning in SCRUM Agile Estimating and Planning 8 ©SCRUMguides

SCRUM in 100 words SCRUM is a set of rules which are based on the Agile principles which are designed to assist the customers and the team to build constructive relationship. Scrum is an agile process that allows us to focus on delivering the highest business value in the shortest time (Mike Cohn). Every two weeks to a month anyone can see real working software and decide to release it as is or continue to enhance it for another sprint (from SCRUM Framework). SCRUM is about common sense (Ken Schwaber). Agile Estimating and Planning 9 ©SCRUMguides

Origins of SCRUM Jeff Sutherland – Initial scrums at Easel Corp in 1993 – IDX and 500+ people doing Scrum Ken Schwaber – ADM – Scrum presented at OOPSLA 96 with Sutherland – Author of three books on Scrum Mike Beedle – Scrum patterns in PLOPD4 Ken Schwaber and Mike Cohn – Co-founded Scrum Alliance in 2002, initially within the Agile Alliance Agile Estimating and Planning 10 ©SCRUMguides

Characteristics of SCRUM One of the “agile processes”. Self-organizing teams. Delivers business functionality each 30 days (two-weeks). Requirements are captured and prioritized throughout the project lifecycle. No specific engineering practices prescribed. Proven to be scalable for distributed teams, long projects. Simple but hard. Agile Estimating and Planning 11 ©SCRUMguides

The Framework Agile Estimating and Planning 12 ©SCRUMguides

SCRUM Terminology ScrumMaster (SM) = Process Owner, Agile Manager Product Owner (PO) = Customer Rep. Sprint = Iteration Product Backlog (PB) = Priotitized Inventory of Requirements Sprint Backlog (SP) = Task List Agile Estimating and Planning 13 ©SCRUMguides

Principles of SCRUM Common sense Strict prioritization Self-organizing team Face-to-face communication Frequent & regular delivery of whole system Short feedback loop Transparency Time-boxing Continuous improvement Simple tools Plans are needed, but they are always wrong Common sense :) From Henrik Kniberg’s “What is Scrum” Agile Estimating and Planning 14 http://crisp.se/ ©SCRUMguides

Our Agenda Introduction 10-minutes intro to SCRUM Plans vs. Planning 10 minutes Levels of Planning User Stories as Agile Requirements Release Planning in SCRUM Sprint Planning in SCRUM Agile Estimating and Planning 15 ©SCRUMguides

Referenced Materials Mike Cohn’s Agile Estimating and Planning User Stories Applied Henrik Kniberg’s Scrum and XP from the Trenches Agile Estimating and Planning 16 ©SCRUMguides

Why We Need Plans? To predict the future To memorize our expectation To be able to compare our predictions we made with the reality we are facing To guide us to the desired situation/state Agile Estimating and Planning 17 ©SCRUMguides

Usual Misunderstanding of Plans A dialog you may have heard: - Remember we agreed upon the plan and the dates? How can you dare telling me now we can’t make it?! - … - Have you seen this happening in your projects? - Why this have happened? - What can be the ways to avoid such situations? Agile Estimating and Planning 18 ©SCRUMguides

Plans vs. Planning If we value the knowledge… If we agree that the future will likely be different comparing to our predictions… If we keep generating the new knowledge that changes our understanding of the future AND the future itself… How can we at all believe to static plans? Isn’t it limiting us? Why don’t we just keep planning until we reach the desired state or place or situation? Agile Estimating and Planning 20 ©SCRUMguides

Famous Saying “Plans are useless. Planning is vital.” Eisenhower Agile Estimating and Planning 21 ©SCRUMguides

Agile Planning ‘Ready… Fire… Aim… Aim… Aim… Aim…’ From Henrik Kniberg Agile Estimating and Planning 22 ©SCRUMguides

Agile Planning Planning (note the ‘-ing’) is happening through the life of an agile project. There is no such a point in the project where the plans got frozen and never updated anymore. Nobody on the agile project can come to you and say: “Hey, but we agreed you will be delivering 30 story points per sprint. How can you be saying now you did only 20 because you could not predict the flows in the technology? It is your job! KABOOM!” But don’t think of agile projects as blind activities without any plans (some people do). We have plans, we just update them as we learn new stuff. But why not? :) Agile Estimating and Planning 23 ©SCRUMguides

Our Agenda Introduction 10-minutes intro to SCRUM Plans vs. Planning Levels of Planning 10 minutes User Stories as Agile Requirements Release Planning in SCRUM Sprint Planning in SCRUM Agile Estimating and Planning 24 ©SCRUMguides

The Three Levels of Planning There are levels above release planning, happening within: • strategic product line management • enterprise portfolio management We don’t touch these levels as we want to look at the levels happening in projects. Agile Estimating and Planning 26 Each lower level supports the one above it. ©SCRUMguides

From Mike Cohn’s “Planning Agile Projects” Agile Estimating and Planning 27 ©SCRUMguides

From Mike Cohn’s “Planning Agile Projects” Agile Estimating and Planning 28 ©SCRUMguides

Planning is Negotiation which ends when the plan is executed Agile Estimating and Planning 29 ©SCRUMguides

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? Agile Estimating and Planning 30 ©SCRUMguides

The Wrong Questions …sometimes not questions at all Can we deliver this list by 15.May next year? Users will come in 5 months for a demo. We need to deliver this 300 pages of requirements [full stop here] Here’s your team, using this brand new [insert any techno mambo-jambo here] technology you need to deliver this stuff in 3 months. And don’t make me sad because I trust you [exclamation mark] Agile Estimating and Planning 31 ©SCRUMguides

The Goals of Iteration Planning Duration is fixed. Resources are fixed. Why is it fixed? 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? Agile Estimating and Planning 32 ©SCRUMguides

The Goals of Daily Planning Let’s discuss: Why we need this planning? How formal should this level of planning be? Should you do it more often? Why is this usually out of scope in project running by a predictive process (e.g. waterfall)? Agile Estimating and Planning 33 ©SCRUMguides

Exercise: A bad SCRUM meeting Agile Estimating and Planning 34 ©SCRUMguides

So now you’ve learned that There are different levels of planning. Planning at each level has its own goal. Each level has its own doers and stakeholders. Granularity and precision of plans differ at the levels. Formality of planning also vary. Agile Estimating and Planning 35 ©SCRUMguides

From Henrik Kniberg’s “Scrum Introduction” Granularity of Planning Details Agile Estimating and Planning 36 ©SCRUMguides

Our Agenda Introduction 10-minutes intro to SCRUM Plans vs. Planning Levels of Planning User Stories as Agile Requirements 15 minutes Release Planning in SCRUM Sprint Planning in SCRUM Agile Estimating and Planning 37 ©SCRUMguides

Terrifying Numbers 7 out of 10 IT projects “fail” in some respect. (OASIG study, 1995) 31.1% of projects will be canceled before they ever get completed (Standish Group’s Chaos Report, 1995) 52.7% of projects will cost over 189% of their original estimates Projects completed by the largest American companies have only approximately 42% of the originally-proposed features Agile Estimating and Planning 38 ©SCRUMguides

Why User Stories? Our plans are based on users’ needs of systems that we are building. We know the needs are likely to be changing as we will be proceeding. It will add risks to our projects. The later the change occur the higher the risks will be (more to rework). That’s why we want the changes to occur as early as possible, and as much as needed! Agile Estimating and Planning 39 ©SCRUMguides

Think of Requirements What are software requirements? Some hints: Stable vs. changing? Known vs. emerging? Based on knowledge vs. theories. What is knowledge? … Agile Estimating and Planning 40 ©SCRUMguides

Why User Stories A Special Tool To satisfy the changing nature of the users’ needs and our needs to still being able to plan and track our projects we need a special tool. Agile Estimating and Planning 41 ©SCRUMguides

User Stories and Scrum User stories naturally feet as items on a Scrum Product Backlog: User Story Details Use https for login page As a normal user I can securely enter the site User enters email and password Meeting data is: summary, As a normal user I can enter new meetings details, datetime, place As a normal user I can browse through my meetings Sort by datetime As an admin I can manage the user list in order to delete duplicate accounts Simple text mailing is enough. Support the templates: As an admin I can mail selected users #email, #name, #date Agile Estimating and Planning 43 ©SCRUMguides

What Makes Good User Stories? Huh? Agile Estimating and Planning 44 ©SCRUMguides

INVEST in Good User Stories User Stories should be: Independent we should be able to prioritize different stories differently Negotiable think of stories as reminders for discussions to take place, never as contracts Valuable they should express value for end-users Estimatable since plans are based on stories we need to be able to estimate them Sized appropriately because complex stories are hard to estimate, compound stories are hard to prioritize Testable Agile Estimating and Planning 45 we need to know when each story is done ©SCRUMguides

A Good User Story Should … Leave room for further discussions to provide flexibility. Avoid specific UI aspects because they limit thinking and creativity. Be stated from a single user’s point of view and using single voice to avoid any confusions. Bring clear value to end-users, so that it can be prioritized (PO is a business person). Stories should be written by people who are as close to end-users as possible. Contain hints on how it can be accepted to assert if it is done or not. Agile Estimating and Planning 46 ©SCRUMguides

Think of the Following User Stories What’s Wrong with Them? 1. As a user I can search for books providing title, author, ISBN, year of publishing, or a publisher. The search results are displayed 10 per a page. If no books are found the user is taken to the main book catalog. 2. As a user I can type a city for search in an AJAX text-box 20 symbols wide that is placed on top right of the “Search by Location” page with a search button placed on the right of the text-box. 3. Users can delete their profiles. 4. The system should be designed with Spring MVC. 5. As a manager I can see team member list with block/activate functionality whereas as a team member I can see the list in a read- only mode only. Agile Estimating and Planning 47 6. As a user I can get the book search results very fast.©SCRUMguides

From Mike Cohn’s “Planning Agile Projects” Stories, Themes, Epics Agile Estimating and Planning 48 ©SCRUMguides

Workshop User Stories vs. ... Software Requirement Specifications Use-case Models Task Lists … Agile Estimating and Planning 49 ©SCRUMguides

Our Agenda Introduction 10-minutes intro to SCRUM Plans vs. Planning Levels of Planning User Stories as Agile Requirements Release Planning in SCRUM 30 minutes Sprint Planning in SCRUM Agile Estimating and Planning 50 ©SCRUMguides

Release Planning How many iterations? How much scope? At what costs? Agile Estimating and Planning 51 ©SCRUMguides

Team Should Support Business The teams should support the decision makers by all possible means to enable them to make the needed decisions. Agile Estimating and Planning 53 ©SCRUMguides

Estimating in Story Points Means the relative size of the story: – Login screen is 2 – Search feature is 8 Unit-less points. Integrated level of understanding, complexity, risks, feelings… Precision is enough for release planning. Easy to estimate, harder to explain. Don’t inflate Agile Estimating and Planning 57 ©SCRUMguides

Estimating in Ideal Time Think of Ideal Time as when – You have no interruptions – You have all you need – You feel good Think of how many productive hours a day you usually have. Hard to agree, easy to argue: – I can do it in 10 hours, you can do it in 5. So who is right? – Today I think it is 10h, next month (when I know more) I think it is 2 Easier to explain, harder to estimate. Time estimates might inflate. Agile Estimating and Planning 59 ©SCRUMguides

Planning Poker The Steps Each estimator is given a deck of cards (1,2,3,5,8…) A Product Owner reads a story Estimators are for clarifications until everyone is ready to estimate Each estimator selects a card without showing it to the others By command cards are got turned over People with different estimates have discussions (limit with a timer) The round repeats until estimates converge Agile Estimating and Planning 65 ©SCRUMguides

Planning Poker It Helps to Avoid the Pitfalls Uses the right units Avoids anchoring Implies negotiating Everyone is listened It’s quick and fun! :) Agile Estimating and Planning 66 ©SCRUMguides

Velocity A speed at which the team is able to convert product backlog items into working product. Agile Estimating and Planning 68 ©SCRUMguides

Visualizing Release Planning Release Burndown 350 320 300 275 Backlog Size 250 220 200 150 100 90 50 40 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Sprints Agile Estimating and Planning 73 ©SCRUMguides

Our Agenda Introduction 10-minutes intro to SCRUM Plans vs. Planning Levels of Planning User Stories as Agile Requirements Release Planning in SCRUM Sprint Planning in SCRUM 20 minutes Agile Estimating and Planning 74 ©SCRUMguides

Iteration Planning Contains of two parts: 1. Select the top PB items for the sprint PO’s involvement is mandatory 2. Team builds the task list with original estimates in hours and assignments Agile Estimating and Planning 76 ©SCRUMguides

Iteration Planning Inputs Initial sprint goal (can be changed during the planning) Team’s velocity (averaged or estimated) Team members’ availability over the next sprint (think of holidays, planned day-offs, vacations, conferences and trainings, changes in the team) PB with estimates (at least for the top items for the next 2-3 sprints) Outcomes from the last sprint review and retrospective Agile Estimating and Planning 77 ©SCRUMguides

Iteration Planning Outputs Updated sprint goal the Team (all members) is committed to. A set of top PB items (with agreed accepting criterions) the Team believes they can convert into working product during the sprint. Agreed upon a date and time of the review meeting. Sprint Backlog (SB) with initial assignments and rough estimates in hours done by the team. Agreement with the stakeholders on the level of visibility the team will be providing (makes sense for distributed development). Agile Estimating and Planning 78 ©SCRUMguides

Iteration Planning Strategy Based on Commitments 1. The Team and the PO go from the top of the PB discussing each item. 2. Upon the discussion the Team may ask any question that might affects estimate and acceptance of the item until everyone agrees on the strategy of the implementation and ready to estimate it. 3. When everyone agrees with the estimate and the acceptance criterion, a team member self-commits to become responsible for the item. Absent people cannot become responsible for any items. 4. The name of the responsible person is recorded in the PB and the next item is pulled out for discussion. 5. This process continues until no-one can self-commit for the next item. Agile Estimating and Planning 79 ©SCRUMguides

Talk SCRUM We need 3 potential POs We need 3 potential SMs We need 3 potential team members Agile Estimating and Planning 80 ©SCRUMguides

Our Agenda Introduction 10-minutes intro to SCRUM Plans vs. Planning Levels of Planning User Stories as Agile Requirements Release Planning in SCRUM Sprint Planning in SCRUM Questions Agile Estimating and Planning 81 ©SCRUMguides

Agile Estimating Planning With Scrum, Kharkov

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