Agile project planning
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Most agile approaches focus on collecting requirements in a backlog then delivering iteratively. Yet, how do you get that point? The traditional path to turn a vision into an approved project is usually a ‘not so agile process.’ Agile challenges the status quo. This session will look at applying an agile approach to the inception phase (before iteration 0) where you take a vision/roadmap and turn it into an agile project.
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Agile project planning
- 1. Enterprise Agile Agile Project Planning – Seizing the Business Opportunity January 2012
- 2. Introducing Troy and Cohesion About Troy About Cohesion • Owns development and delivery of • Consulting company with over a decade Cohesion's Agile Services of experience • More than 17 years of IT experience • Advisory & Delivery Services support spanning several industries and roles both agile and traditional project approaches • Over 4 years of experience focused on agile/iterative project delivery where • Focus on PM, BA, Microsoft "one size doesn't fit all Technologies, .NET, Java, QA • Notable success involves introducing • Proven agile framework which can be agile at Fidelity Investments, resulting in tailored for your organization improved customer satisfaction, cost avoidance, higher employee • Offices in Cincinnati, Dayton, satisfaction, and establishing a true Columbus, and Charlotte team culture COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 3. Contents Value of Agile Traditional Agile Focus Seizing the Business Opportunity COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 4. Delivering Business Need Repeatable On time & within budget Deliver project to meet business objectives COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 5. Lost Opportunity Many of us are familiar with the traditional development approach. Opportunity Business Identified Lost Opportunity / Cost Realized Value Plan & Define Deploy Design Build IT Test No value is realized until the end 3 Months COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 6. Seizing the Opportunity An Agile Approach delivers value to the business on an iteration basis with regular feedback loops. It also includes mechanisms to change and adjust as the project proceeds. Opportunity Business Identified Value Value Value Value Value Total Cost Realized Business Value Plan & Define Plan & Define Plan & Define Plan & Define Plan & Define Plan & Define In the first few iterations of this Design Design Design Design Design Design model, “value” may be defined as feedback, consensus and IT Build Build Build Build Build Build direction. In later iterations it may map to dollars. Test Test Test Test Test Test Deploy Deploy Deploy Deploy Deploy Deploy 2 Weeks Weeks Weeks Weeks Weeks Weeks 2 2 2 2 2 3 Months COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 7. Proven Approach – Life of a Feature Planning & Visioning Seizing the Business Opportunity. Providing timely information to support accelerating the project approval process How agile is your Planning & Visioning process today? COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 8. Elements for an Approved Project Iteration • Period of time that delivers a value-add, inspectable deliverable Release • Collection of iterations towards delivering the solution Project • Collection of releases to meet a desired objective or goal When What Who Project How Why Request Much COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 9. The Idea Inputs Features You are the product owner with a roadmap that you hope can be delivered by end of year. Use simple tool that everyone has access and familiarity. This Microsoft Excel spreadsheet is created. Funding Source Features – Rocks requested to be delivered Funding source – Track what departments will provide funding Priority Priority – Attack order Roadmap Estimate – T-shirt size from analyst, dev, and QA. Add a confidence level factor for variability to provide estimate range Estimate COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 10. T-shirt Sizing The estimation pace is aided by using size models, not individual estimates. Precision is not key at this point. Roadmap COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 11. Sizing a Story T-shirt Sizing • Uses actual hours. People think in hours • Definitive #, not relative • PRO: Quick understanding, easy translation to $$ cost • CON: Backlog grooming might require adjusting estimate • XS 16 hours / sub week • S 24 hours / one week • M 48 hours / two weeks • L 72 hours / four weeks Points • More abstract. Does not necessarily equate to hours • PRO: Relative to each other, granularity • CON: Harder translation to $$ • 1 = Less then 4 hours • 2 = More then ½ a day but less then a day • 4 = About a day • 8 = More then a day but less then 2 • 16 = About half a week • 32 = About a week COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 12. Velocity Calculated Cohesion measures velocity in ideal hours and ideal days. Ideal hours are defined as one hour of uninterrupted work. 60 minutes of heads down, undisturbed work that ends in an artifact. The artifact is the output. A meeting to discuss an artifact does not yield an artifact and is therefore effort. Necessary Meeting to Automated Design Coding to Build and review Test for User Review discussion requirement Deploy requirement requirement This is what is estimated and inspected in Ideal Hours. Effort Output Effort COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 13. Supporting Business Case Add Inputs Target release Business Case Specialized skills Business case intends to request funding for a specific set of features. This set of features is likely to span multiple releases. Therefore, need to align features to specific releases. COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 14. Supporting Project Request Add Inputs Driving to Approved Project Role allocations Decompose large items The business case has been approved. Now it’s time to establish the project request to christen delivery of a set of features across multiple releases. Confidence levels should be 50% or better which requires decomposing Large items. The continuous flow model provides a skeleton to review offered vs optimal staffing levels – minimal lag, slack. It also validates the target release wish. COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 15. Balancing Continuous Flow Driving to Approved Project The team has re-estimated the features to acceptable levels, minimally no Large items. Does the staffing support delivery flow? Need to inspect that proposed staffing can deliver on the requested targets. 1. ½ BA doesn’t feed 2 Developers enough. Ditto QA for 6 of 8 months. In addition, 53 days (24% of features) won’t be delivered until next year 2. Increase to 1 BA still doesn’t feed 2 Developers enough. Needed to add ½ QA to maintain flow 3. Reduce Dev by ½ FTE produces continuous flow. This is a model, not trying to be perfect. Highlights more decomposition could be useful COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 16. Communicating to Mgmt Sweet spot – Best value for the $$ Danger Zone –Decompose & re-evaluate Manage risk – Complex but low investment Review Bus Value – Is cost worth it Driving to Approved Project Q3 Release Business Value 10 9 A Technical Complexity 8 B 7 D Manage Danger 6 Risk Zone E 5 Sweet Review F 4 Spot Bus Val G 3 2 H 1 C 0 - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Cost Cost increment $5k COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 17. Putting the Puzzle Pieces Together Feature Sept Dec R Sss Ttt Sss ttt Supported by: Sss • Decomposition • Priority Q3 Release Business Value 10 A Bbb Ccc • Estimate 9 A Bbb Ccc • Flow Technical Complexity 8 Ccc B Driving to Approved Project 7 D Manage Danger 6 Risk Zone E 5 4 Sweet Review Spot Bus Val F … Role FTE Names 3 G 2 H 1 0 C BA 1 Dave - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Cost When Dev 1.5 Jason, ½ Brett QA 1 John What Who … Identify IM, DBA, etc Business Case FTE 99.99 Justification Cost: $xxxk Project How Why Request Much COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 18. Key Takeaways • Just Enough – Only be as precise as needed – likely talk in days, not hours – More precision requires time & cost trade-off • Timebox – Provides a sense of urgency – Promote prioritization • Communicate with audience in mind – Bring the “right people” together – Spreadsheets are useful to collect & analyze data. Not necessarily the right medium to share with Management COHESION.com 877.774.3001
- 19. Any Questions? Thank you for your time and attention Troy Bitter Director of Agile Services 513.407.9996 tbitter@cohesion.com COHESION.com 877.774.3001
Editor's Notes
- Deliver projectDeliver a project to meet business need & objectives, not just meeting a scope statementDeliver what client wanted/needed and not just the spec. Lowers risk of unable to articulate what client wants – validate quick to inspect & adaptOn time & budgetThe product might contribute to a revenue stream that will make-or-break the businessTime is moneyMake the process repeatable so we can predict timelines and budgetsOriginal iPhoneHad a business objective. The first generation did not include copy or paste. It had a launch date to meet (and maybe a budget to work within)Notice that Apple launches an updated iPhone every year. They need a repeatable process. Ability to predict timelines and budgets to meet the next set of objectives
- Identified opportunity. Business wants …Deliver project to meet business objectives On time & within budgetRepeatable to predict timeline & budgetRealized Value. If this was going out to dinner, when u sit down you must order all your drinks, appetizer, entrée, and dessert at that time. If you change your mind, then it’s double the cost – a change request. Doesn’t sound natural, how we live our everyday lives
- Total Realized Business ValueSoftValue: Business is getting you feedbackHard Value: Usable code that makes or saves the company moneyDeliver a project to meet business need & objectives, not just meeting a scope statementDeliver what client wanted/needed and not just the spec. Lowers risk of unable to articulate what client wants – validate quick to inspect & adaptSubtle: The colors match the traditional slide to subtly show the relationship
- Mainstream agile approaches focus on the iterative delivery. It starts with an approved project then you deliver iteratively (short talk of cycle graphic)Click – To get to an approved project, you need planning and visioning activities. Either waterfall or any approach to agile – you need the planning & visioning activities. The Life of a feature begins with planning & visioning to get to an approved point of start delivery of working, user-friendly solutions - working code in many caseQuestion. Have 1-2 audience members speak. End with Fidelity example where they were not ready for “next project” and we cleared out maintenance backlog – less strategic, true value-add pieces in the interim. Then they asked for a leaner, quicker, more agile process for moving an idea to an approved projectAgain, the agile manifesto, scrum, and other approaches focus on the iterative delivery aspect – let’s start after you know what you want. Today, we’ll focus on the planning & visioning pieces that gets funding to do a projectFor decision makers, they want to know … a realistic release date for the project and sets of features. We need this set of features for January because they are related to tax season.
- ProjectReleaseIterationFor a project request, you need to be able to answer some big, yet simple questions
- It all starts with an idea. Slim-read first paragraphProduct Owner will meet with a sub-team to review roadmap, feature understanding and assumptions, and elicit ROM estimates (25% confidence level). The spreadsheet will ballpark funding & staffing levels needed to accomplish the estimated features.Slim read the inputs & list. Call out a few features from speadsheetTarget to accomplish within 4 hours across 1-2 sessions. How? At roadmap level trying to be more directional, not trying to be precise.
- The estimation pace is aided by using size models, not individual estimates. Again, precision is not key at this point. There are some L (large) estimates applied – and higher estimation factor shows lower confidence level for L items. Trying to answer: Should we consider pursuing these features?How to determine model? Use historical velocity or productivity numbers. Otherwise, guess and adjust as you learn more.NoteWhere’s the Project Manager/ Iteration Manager/ ScrumMaster effort? Where’s the DBA and other less dedicated staff? Compensated in estimate range (factor)Model numbers do not change for breaking learning curve and improving velocity. This is compensated in effort estimate range.
- Some use Fibonacci SeriesContinuous sum of two numbers 0 1 2 3 5 8 13 21. Good integer approximation of logarithms. As the estimate gets bigger it gets less accurate. You need more details on low values, and approximation on higher valuesPeople have also used coins 1, 5, 10, 25. It’s a finite number of items like t-shirt sizesCohesion supports t-shirt sizing because it’s more easily understood – don’t have to be intimately involved and quicker than point translation math
- If this is a 40 hour timesheet week, the output is only a subset of that … like 24 hours
- Business case intends to request funding for a specific set of features. Those with checkbooks will want to know how much and when they need to write the checks – outflow/costsThis set of features is likely to span multiple releases. Therefore, need to align features to specific releases. This is a target and NOT a commitment due to the level of information, changing priorities, and other factors. Likely still at 25% confidence level due to level of informationDiscussions increase feature understanding and updating estimates and assumptions. There are still some L (large) estimates applied. We are starting to show funding at Organization level (eCommerce, Marketing) and release level (click).We also want to look at risk/critical path items such as specialized skill sets. For this example, we want a Lead for Add items to cart. Looks to be more complexity and a more senior person would be goodTarget to accomplish within 4 hours across 1-2 sessions. How? At this level trying to be more directional, not trying to be precise.
- Skim-read the paragraphIn this example, our iterations were 4 weeks (roughly a month). When you tag a feature to a specific period/iteration, it provides subtotals to review against the offered staffing levels. That’s where the reality checks begin
- Situation 1What happens when you have idle developers? They pull them to another project for part-time which turns out to be larger than you have available. OR they just pull themBetter to have continuous flow to optimize utilization/allocation and availability expectation
- Spreadsheets are useful to collect & analyze data. Not necessarily the right medium to share with Mgmt. Using an Excel bubble chart, the Business Value chart communicates the features , cost, risk, and business value at a Mgmt-friendly level. Risk & business value might be more subjective if objective measures not in placeX = Cost, Y = Complexity, Bubble size = business value, color = feature setTry to limit to < 10 features so that’s why I use the term feature set to consolidateHow does the Mgmt conversation go? Explain what they are seeing. The conversation really resolved around outliers of the sweet spot. In this case, 2 x-y items. It could also focus on a small bubble in a high/low coordinate such as a high cost-low complexity-small bubble representing to an infrastructure upgrade (Oracle db upgrade which requires more than usual regression testing)