Agile Road Mapping and Forecasting – how to make princess and ugly go together Presentation Summary – abstract Product roadmaps in ‘classic’ product management are useful to communicate a strategic plan for your product; however the concepts of Agile and Road Mapping seem to be mutually exclusive; and yet in agile product development environments, our stakeholders, and specifically, clients and executives demand a committed roadmap! How do we reconcile the two? Further questions that arise: Why do we need roadmaps in agile at all? What are the best practices for creating and maintaining agile roadmaps? What are signs of anti-agile roadmaps? In this collaborative presentation we work together to: 1. Explore the Agile/Roadmap grid 2. Discuss challenges and discover key concepts; 3. Focus on best practices and recognize anti-patterns; 4. Identify how to make our product roadmaps, agile. If time permits we review a case study of a whole team long term forecasting process and road mapping Learning Objectives:  Identify the challenges of creating a roadmap in an agile product development environment;  Learn nine agile road mapping best practices  Categorize roadmap anti patterns and  Commit to actions you could take to overcome them

1. Agile Road Mapping and
Planning
PMI NEW – PDD – 3rd May 2017
Michael Nir
President Sapir Consulting

2. Michael Nir
cs.com-m.nir@sapir
President @ Sapir Consulting US
• Transformation Inspiration Expert,
Business Agility Coach; empowers
organizations to deliver results
• Author of 10 bestseller business
books

3. Agile Road Mapping
is like Honey

4. Topics We Potentially Cover
The must have grid
Hey, what is a roadmap?
What makes it agile?
Agile roadmap –good and bad smells
Some better practices and worse
Case study – time permitting
Take aways

5. Small Team Discussion:
What’s a Roadmap – 10 minutes
 With 2-3 others at your tables
 Introduce yourself
 Discuss: “when we say roadmap – what do we
mean?”
 Capture your thoughts (writing and/or
drawing) on a flip chart using a marker
Important! Ask
others at work!

6. Roadmap – neat graphical
display we share with
(senior) stakeholders without
intent of delivering (aka
lying)

7. Agile and Roadmap Flavors – Mutually
Exclusive?
Yes Agile, No Roadmap
‘California Dreaming… ‘
Yes Agile, Yes Roadmap
The Fairytale
No Agile, No Roadmap
The big mess
No Agile, Yes Roadmap
The Corporate
Agile
Roadmap

8. “Princess and Ugly Don’t Go
Together”
Princess Fiona, Shrek

11. Pair Discussion: What is in an Agile
Roadmap – 5 minutes
 With one other person
 Discuss: what are three things that make a
roadmap agile?
 Write them as bullets on a flip chart using a
marker (one flip chart per table)
Important! Ask
others at work!

12. Agile Roadmap – neat
graphical display we share
with senior stakeholders
without intent of ever
delivering…but now we have
a good excuse since we’re
agile

13. The Agile-Team While Powerful is
Short of the Bigger Picture

14. Agile Road Map Connects the Strategy
to Program and to the Team

15. Agile Roadmap Replaces Scope Driven
Planning with Time Driven Planning

18. Nine Agile Roadmap Best Practices
1. Enables value progressively – vertical slices
2. Delivery team/s involved in Planning the Roadmap
3. Getting to the “WHY” in the Roadmap –problems we’re solving
4. Team has execution flexibility within the Roadmap
5. Architecture ‘runway’ is integrated into the roadmap
6. Level of confidence for time frames
7. Right sizing
8. Single owner
9. Roadmap as a communication tool and abstraction layer for managing expectations

19. “All happy families are alike;
each unhappy family is unhappy in
its own way.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

20. Unhappy Agile Roadmaps
• No value delivered before end point, wasteful
• Not truthful, disconnect with reality
• The Roadmap as a junkyard 1 – where’s my team’s work
• The Roadmap as a junkyard 2 – too many and not strategy traceable
• The Roadmap as a junkyard 3 – big and small
• Many conflicting roadmaps and none are owned
• Team isn’t included in the bigger planning sessions
• Killed by cross team dependencies

21. Not Truthful, Disconnect with Reality
7%
13%
16%
19%
45%
Always
Often
Sometimes
Rarely
Never
SVP Product:
“Michael, we always
miss, CEO just
doesn’t Remember
what was on the
roadmap
Chaos report, Feature Waste

22. The Roadmap as a Junkyard 1 –
Where’s My Team’s Work
Sr. Director During
Quarterly Planning: “I
don’t see my teams
work!!!”

23. The Roadmap as a Junkyard 2 – Too
Many and Not Strategy Traceable
Plan for summer
release: we have 18
themes – engineering
and OPS can handle it

24. The Roadmap as a Junkyard 3 – Big
and Small

25. Many Conflicting Roadmaps and None
are Owned
“We’ve got too many large initiatives in the pipe,
which dilutes focus and causes a mismatch in skills &
priorities. However, it’s the mismatch in
priority that really gets in the way”

26. Small Team Discussion:
Agile Roadmap Smells – 15 minutes
 With 2-3 others at your tables
 Discuss: what are your signs of an Anti-Agile Roadmap?
 Create a table on a flipchart: Good Small – Bad Smell (anti
patterns)
 Categorize and group the bad smells (anti patterns)
 What are specific actions you could take to improve the smell?

27. Case Study:
Road Mapping and Team Forecasts
 Feature backlog estimated
 Product Owner outlines sprint by sprint themes or goals
 Create 6-9 columns across the wall. Label the columns with the next 6 sprint
end dates; PO adds a theme or goal to each sprint
 Do a quick reality check of Sprint themes
 Dev team and PO collaborate to allocate the PBIs and other work over the 6
sprints
 Use the PO’s goals for guidance
 Continue adjusting PBIs and sprints until everyone agrees

28. The Well-prepared Feature and
Product Backlog! Team Listens

29. Teams Plan Roadmap Delivery with
Product Owner

30. Collaborating on Adding the Stories
towards the Roadmap Scope

31. Team and Product Owner Negotiate on
the Forecast

32. Long Term Plan/Roadmap is Complete
After 3 Hours and Lots of Collaboration

33. Three Next Steps
 Enables value progressively – vertical slices
 Delivery team/s involved in Planning the
Roadmap
 Getting to the “WHY” in the Roadmap –
problems we’re solving

34. Three Next Steps
 Enables value progressively – vertical slices
 Delivery team/s involved in Planning the
Roadmap
 Getting to the “WHY” in the Roadmap –
problems we’re solving

37. Agile Road Mapping
is like Honey
Sticky for planning
Flowing for flexibility

38. Thank you!
I wish you success in Agile
Road Mapping!
Connect on LinkedIn
cs.com-m.nir@sapir