This document discusses committing to dates and budgets in an agile development process. It provides different levels of abstraction for planning like features, stories, and initiatives. It also discusses prioritizing work as must-have, should-have, or could-have. The document recommends forecasting dates by calculating throughput and considering story sizes. Metrics are suggested to inspect forecasts against actual business value. Continuous improvement is emphasized through measuring outcomes and adapting processes.

1. HELPING PEOPLE
CREATE GREAT PRODUCTS
Committing to $$ and Dates in an
Agile World
Todd Olson
www.pendo.io

2. First, a little about me
● CEO & Co-Founder, Pendo
Prior
● VP Products, Rally Software
● CTO / Co-Founder, 6th Sense Analytics
● Chief Scientist, Borland
● VP Development, TogetherSoft
● CTO / Co-Founder Cerebellum Software
Tweet @tolson

4. Don’t get run over. Change first.

7. Different Levels of
Abstraction

8. Feature 1 Feature 2 Feature 3 Feature 4
Story A
Story B
Story C
Story D
Story E
Story F
Story G
Story H
Story I
Story J
Initiative
Something a
customer cares
about.
Something you
budget for.

9. Feature 1 Feature 2 Feature 3 Feature 4
Story A
Story B
Story C
Story D
Story E
Story F
Story G
Story H
Story I
Story J
Initiative
Prioritize Within...
must-have
should-have
could-have

10. PRODUCT
Marketing
Support

11. Broader Value Streams
Input Analysis Ready Develop Internal-only External
Exit Criteria Preliminary Estimate
Stories broken down
Must-have stories
UI Mock-ups
Should-have stories
Tech Design
Code complete
Automated Tests passing
Manual testing
Documentation complete
Marketing Blog
Email marketing done
Website updated
Customers identified
Business case
Metrics collecting
FEATURE
Marketing
Support
Sales
Support
Product UX
Architecture
Engineering Marketing
Ops

12. Even Broader Value Streams
Business
Case
Analysis Fund Development
Collect
Evidence
Exit Criteria Feature Break-down
Other dependencies
High-level estimates
Resources allocated
Code complete
Major feature shipped
ROI
Top Customers to use
Usage Metrics
Business Case check-in
INITIATIVE

13. What does the Board care about?

14. &

15. How much..
Is a feature worth?

16. User/Business Value + Time Value + Risk Reduction / Opportunity Enablement
Cost
What does this make
easier? What sort of
leverage can we get?
How timely is this? What’s the
cost of missing?
How much do our
users/customers value
this?
Track a Business Value Point

17. Investment Allocations

18. Forecasting Dates in an Agile Way
1 Calculate Throughput across period (week, month, etc)
2 Use throughput to compute how many items on force-ranked
backlog you can complete in the chosen period.

19. Example: Forecasting Dates
XS
S
M
L
2
Point Conversion
4
8
16
Quarterly Throughput
Q1: 40 feature points
Q2: 38 feature points
Q3: 42 feature points
FEATURE SIZES
Q3
Q4
Large Feature 1
Small Feature 1
Small Feature 2
Remember that there
is prioritized variable
scope within each
Feature!!!
Large Feature 2

20. Options: Forecasting Dates
Loads of options based on process...
Artifact: Feature or Story
# of items or Sum of Estimates
Story Point Estimates or T-Shirt Sizes

21. INSPECT AND ADAPT

22. Are our T-shirt sizes good?
XS
S
M
L
2
Point Conversion Actual Cycle Times
1d
4 3d
8 5d
16 20d
2x 4x

23. Business Value Feedback
Forecast
Our biggest customers really need
this.
This is going to kill the competition.
This is going to save use millions of
$$.
Every user is craving this.
Actuals
Yet only 2 customers start using it after
the release.
The competition copied us in a month.
Cost of training and change negated the
savings.
5% of users tried out.

24. Measure everything
● Usage
○ By customer
○ By user
● Revenue
○ Sales cycle
○ Win-loss
● Cost-savings
● Customer Satisfaction
● Developer Satisfaction
● Support Tickets
● Forum posts
● Help searches

25. Continue your Agile Journey...

26. Start small…
Start with Features

28. HELPING PEOPLE
CREATE GREAT PRODUCTS
Questions?
www.pendo.io