RBD-Demo

Risk Burndown Demo
Background
You have just started a new project with a new team. This is an experienced team, and you expect their
velocity will be somewhere about 50 story points per sprint but maybe as low as 40, or as high as 60.
This team is about to embark of on a 10-sprint plan to deliver five epics, E1, E2 …, E5. Each sprint is 2
weeks. Let’s call the project Rel.
This team is reasonably aggressive and willing to accept an initial 30% uncertainty of delivery.
THE APTAGE Workbook
To start using Aptage, you need to create the input workbook to upload. Start with the Aptage RBD
template, RBBTemplate.xlsx. In this workbook, you will find two sheets: Plan and Items.
The Plan sheet is shown in Figure 1.

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aptage E; hello@aptage.com P: (781) 769 2520 W: Aptage.com
Figure 1. The Plan sheet.
Fill in the project’s values, and then save the workbook with a name such as Rel1.xlxs.
Figure 2 Release Plan Data.
Note: we will be using Estimated Velocity, represented by E. That data is entered in the Items sheet.
Over time, we will replace the estimate with learned velocity, which will be explained more fully below.
The risk burndown tool evaluates the risk of delivery at the beginning of each sprint.
We start planning at sprint 1.
Now, save the workbook as Rel1.xlsx (or whatever name you like, but keep the ‘1’).
We now move to the Item sheet.

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Figure 3 The Item sheet.
Each row represents the data for either a STORY or an EPIC.
On this sheet:
 Column A is the Item ID. This can be any string.
 Columns B, C, D, together, is a sizing triplet. Values in B, C, or D can be any number, so that D
 C  B.
 Column E contains the name of the Iteration in which the item was completed. This is used for
ongoing velocity estimation.
 Column F contains an ‘x’ for those items still in plan and not yet done.
 Column G contains a priority field. These can be an integer with 1 being the highest priority.
Figure 4 shows an example of a populated Item sheet.

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Figure 4 The populated Item sheet.
Item G is the initial velocity ‘guess’ The E in column E - the velocity estimation data - links to the E in
row 6 of the Plan sheet.
Note first there is a mixture of stories and epics. E1 is decomposed into stories E1S1, …, E1S5. The
remaining epics, E2 through E5, have not yet been decomposed and, so, have large sizings. Even
though they are in the initial plan, the E1 stories have appropriately smaller sizings. Aptage Risk
Burndown will use the stories P1 through P15 to estimate the team velocity. Note that the epics and
the epic stories are all included in the plan.
Now save the workbook in ../RBD Demo/input folder.
Initial Run
Now, open a terminal and cd to the ../RBD Demo/code directory. Enter ‘python RBD.py’. The code will
ask for the name of the worksheet. Just enter the name without the .xlsx extension. The code returns
a message validating that it has found and opened the workbook - and that the data has been
validated. This is followed by a suggested set of stories for the next (in this case, first) sprint. These

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stories are chosen so that if they are completed, the needed velocity will be maintained and
prioritized by uncertainty reduction and priority.
Figure 5 Running RBD.
A window showing the probability over time of completing the effort will also appear.
Figure 6 The Aptage likelihood chart.

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Now, close the graphics window to complete the process. Never fear, the same diagram is saved to
the output folder as Rel1.png
In this case, the x-axis is weeks, and the y axis is the probability of completing the release in that
number of weeks given the size and velocity estimate. In this diagram, the area of the red part of the
diagram is the probability of missing the hoped-for date. Note that this plan does not meet the initial
criteria of 30% uncertainty. So, some content management is in order. Go back into the Item sheet
and deselect Epic E5. Then, re-run the tool.
Figure 7 The Rel-2 item sheet, with Epic E5 deselected.
Running the tool again gives us the likelihood chart in Figure 8.

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Figure 8 The Rel1-2 plan likelihood chart.
Since we are running the tool prior to starting the project, the burndown chart does not appear.
Next Run
Now, suppose the team completes the first iteration with all suggested stories and it wants to see if it
is on track. It needs to build a new input workbook, based on the first book.
To do this, open the workbook. Note there is a hidden sheet in the book that contain data for future
plotting; so, do not start from scratch. We will save the workbook as demo2.
In prepping for the next sprint, Epics E3 and E5 have been decomposed into stories. Each of these
has been given sizing triplets. There is no need for the story sizes to add up in any way to the initial
epic sizing, as the team has gained more insight during the decomposition.
To reflect all this:
 Add the new stories with the sizings, and mark them in plan.
 Remove the in-plan marker from the E3 and E5 items, now that its stories are in plan.

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 Add the S1 marker to column E for the completed stories.
Now the item sheet looks like:
Figure 9 Item sheet prior to sprint 2.
We also need to update the Plan sheet. All that is needed is to replace the E with ‘S1’ to the list in cell
B6 to reflect the team history, and change B2 to 2. See Figure 10.

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Figure 10 The Updated Plan Sheet.
Save the spreadsheet as Rel2.xlsx, and run the code again. This time, enter the updated spreadsheet
into the tool. I will enter ‘Rel2’.
The tool returns suggested stories for the next sprint (E2S3, E2S6, E3S3, E2S1) and this likelihood
diagram:
Figure 11 The likelihood diagram after one sprint.

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Note the risk of missing the delivery has been slightly reduced to 27%. Closing this window, we also
get the first risk burndown chart (Figure 12).
Figure 12 The risk burndown chart after the first iteration.
In a well-run Agile exercise, the uncertainty of delivery will decrease over the project lifecycle. The
risk burndown chart shows if this is in fact the case for the current effort.
Now suppose the next sprint does not go well. A couple of team members were not available, and the
team only completed E2S3. The updated Item sheet is found in Figure 13. After updated, the Item
sheet looks like this:

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Figure 13 The item sheet for Rel3.xlsx.

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Figure 14 The plan sheet for Rel3.
Note that we added S2 to the estimation data with a ‘,’ separator.
Again, we save the workbook - this time as ‘Rel3.xlsx’ and run the tool entering this workbook.
Figure 15 Rel3 Likelihood chart.
Note that even though one story was completed, the uncertainty of delivery has not decreased,
putting the overall project at risk. This is more evident in the risk burndown chart below.

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Figure 16 . The risk burndown after Sprint 2 moves into the red.
Given the sprint history, we see the project is now slightly in the red. The tool suggests the team
deliver stories E2S6, E3S3, E3S6 in the next sprint. However, they only deliver E2S6 and E3S3.
The sheets are updated and the workbook is saved as ‘Rel4.xlsx’. The tool now returns the following
charts:

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Figure 17 The Rel4 Likelihood chart.
Figure 18 The Risk Burndown after iteration 3.

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Risk Management and Scenarios
This project is clearly in trouble and needs to get on track and needs something in the project
execution to change:
You can use the Aptage Risk Burndown tool to explore some alternatives. You can create a variety
scenarios to project what the residual risk would be under different actions. For example, here are
three scenarios.
1. Removing epic 4 from the plan and completing the three stories;
2. Assuming leaving epic 4 in the plan, decomposing it and completing all the suggested stories;
3. Continuing at the same pace;
To test each of these, build three versions of the workbook: Rel5S1.xlsx, Rel5S2.xlsx, and Rel5S3.xlsx
modeling each of them. Also, to reflect the team history, we will base the velocity estimation on the
last three sprints. This is captured in cell B of the Plan sheet; the ‘S1’ is removed from the list (see
Figure 19).
Figure 19. The Plan sheet for the three scenarios.
The risk burndown chart for scenario 1 is Figure 20.

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Figure 20 The Risk burndown chart for scenario 1.
Note the risk of missing the delivery is under control in this scenario.

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Figure 21 The Risk Burndown chart for scenario 2.
In this case, the risk is still too high but leveling off. Proceeding with this plan means committing to
higher velocity to get the project on track.
As you can see in Figure 22, proceeding at the same pace is not a viable option.
Figure 22 The Risk Burndown for scenario 3.
Scenario 3 is clearly not an option. Choosing between the other scenarios depends on your
organization culture and priorities. If your organization is counting on the release and epic 4 can be
postponed, scenario 1 is the safe choice. However, if epic 4 is critical, then the team needs to be
allowed to be focused and not miss the further sprints.
Let’s suppose the team does go forward with scenario 2 but gets four more stories done: E3S6, E3S4,
and completes epic 2 (stories E2S4, E2S5).
The item sheet for Rel6 looks like this:

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Figure 23 The Rel6 item sheet.
Then the risk burndown chart now looks like:

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Figure 24 The Rel6 Risk Burndown chart.
Note that the project is on track but not home free. With the right focus and monitoring, this project
can deliver on-time.
Discussion
With the Aptage Risk Burndown tool, the team can plan and steer the program to success:
 Plan a release according the estimated team velocity (based on previous history or team’s
best belief) and risk appetite.
 Continually monitor and adjust the content and effort to account for the program
performance.
o Get early indication of possible failure.
o Consider and model different recovery approaches.

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Figure 25 The brisk burndown for scenario 3.

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Appendix: Aptage RBD Tool Environment
The Risk Burndown Tool
To run the Aptage RBD tool, you need to have access to a machine that has the following installed.
 Python 3.4 or higher;
 The numpy, scipy, matplotlib, and openpyxl modules;
 The Aptage Dropbox demo directory, ‘RBD Demo’ with these three folders:
1. Code - the Aptage code files including RBD.py, the main executable;
2. Input – holding the MS Excel® worksheets;
3. Output – containing the output graphics generated by the Risk Burndown tool;
Also, to run demos, clear out the RBD_input folder copy the files from the canned directory to the
folder.

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