The document discusses release planning in an agile environment. It defines what a release plan is and its purpose to communicate the scope and timeline of releases to stakeholders. The process of creating a release plan is described, including identifying epics, features, and user stories to fulfill the release vision, estimating work, and using velocity to determine the timeline and number of iterations needed to complete the planned work.
Release Planning is a Pain Point in many Agile shops. This is an outline of a process that has worked very well for me over time. I hope you find it useful also.
Ever wonder why Agile teams swear by relative estimation? My teams improved sprint planning efforts by a factor or 3, once we started using relative estimation.
Without understanding Agile relative estimation, teams tend to fall back to using time-based methods. This often leads them to spend way too much time on obsolete estimates that will be made even more complex with all the unknowns and constant emergent requirements of an Agile world!
“It's better to be roughly right, than precisely wrong!”
~ John Maynard Keyenes
The Solution is simple: understand that relative estimation is only a rough order of magnitude estimate to quickly organize the product backlog. This empowers your product owners (PO) to quickly make value based trade-offs on backlog items and decide on what stories the team should work next. This gives the business the highest bang for their buck!
PROBLEMS WITH TIME-BASED ESTIMATES
-Teams spend too much time trying to get it right
-Lack of confidence/experience can lead to people being either optimistic or pessimistic
-Timeline you are estimating may be too far in the future
-Due to long timeline, there are too many risks, unknowns, changes or dependencies!
WHY USE RELATIVE ESTIMATION?
-Allows a quick comparison of stories in the backlog
-Allows you to select a predictable volume of work to do in a sprint
-Uses a simple arbitrary scale
-Allows PO to make trade-offs and take on the most valuable stories next
ESTIMATION TIPS
-Relative points or equivalent Tshirt sizes are used to estimate stories, leveraging the Fibonacci sequence modified for Agile.
-The team estimates the story, not management nor the customer.
-Story estimates account for three things: effort, complexity, and unknowns. Don’t short sell yourself by estimating effort alone, that’s where waterfall projects face issues.
-Remember to estimate all Stories, user stories or technical stories. Even estimate research or discovery spikes.
-Refine your backlog as a team on a continuous basis, to get your stories to meet the Definition of Ready.
-Only pull into your sprint, stories that are refined and estimated.
-Break down stories that are large, into smaller slivers of value to optimize your flow.
-Don’t sweat it if you get it wrong, teams often do early on but improve over time.
Understanding the Agile Release and Sprint Planning Process John Derrico
How to easily understand the agile release and sprint planning process. Simple diagrams based on six sigma principles to clearly convey the goals of the planning process including the understanding of the customers as well as the inputs and outputs required for Agile Release and Sprint Planning ant tactics for success.
Sprint Planning in Scrum and How to do it without Tearing Your Eyes OutJason Knight
There are 4 formal events in Scrum:
Sprint Planning
The Daily Scrum
The Sprint Review
Sprint Retrospective
This talk walks through the Scrum Guide's description of Sprint Planning, an example Sprint Planning event, and some suggestions of how to run an effective Sprint Planning session without tearing your eyes out.
Backlog refinement is not a Scrum event, but instead is an ongoing activity during the Sprint required to decompose, describe, estimate, and order backlog items in the Product Backlog.
This material is divided into two sections. The first section reviews the basics of backlog refinement, covering various options for conducting the activity. The second section covers tips for maintaining a healthy backlog and potential anti-patterns.
This material was presented at Agile New England in July and August 2022 as "101" introduction and "202" advanced sessions.
Release Planning is a Pain Point in many Agile shops. This is an outline of a process that has worked very well for me over time. I hope you find it useful also.
Ever wonder why Agile teams swear by relative estimation? My teams improved sprint planning efforts by a factor or 3, once we started using relative estimation.
Without understanding Agile relative estimation, teams tend to fall back to using time-based methods. This often leads them to spend way too much time on obsolete estimates that will be made even more complex with all the unknowns and constant emergent requirements of an Agile world!
“It's better to be roughly right, than precisely wrong!”
~ John Maynard Keyenes
The Solution is simple: understand that relative estimation is only a rough order of magnitude estimate to quickly organize the product backlog. This empowers your product owners (PO) to quickly make value based trade-offs on backlog items and decide on what stories the team should work next. This gives the business the highest bang for their buck!
PROBLEMS WITH TIME-BASED ESTIMATES
-Teams spend too much time trying to get it right
-Lack of confidence/experience can lead to people being either optimistic or pessimistic
-Timeline you are estimating may be too far in the future
-Due to long timeline, there are too many risks, unknowns, changes or dependencies!
WHY USE RELATIVE ESTIMATION?
-Allows a quick comparison of stories in the backlog
-Allows you to select a predictable volume of work to do in a sprint
-Uses a simple arbitrary scale
-Allows PO to make trade-offs and take on the most valuable stories next
ESTIMATION TIPS
-Relative points or equivalent Tshirt sizes are used to estimate stories, leveraging the Fibonacci sequence modified for Agile.
-The team estimates the story, not management nor the customer.
-Story estimates account for three things: effort, complexity, and unknowns. Don’t short sell yourself by estimating effort alone, that’s where waterfall projects face issues.
-Remember to estimate all Stories, user stories or technical stories. Even estimate research or discovery spikes.
-Refine your backlog as a team on a continuous basis, to get your stories to meet the Definition of Ready.
-Only pull into your sprint, stories that are refined and estimated.
-Break down stories that are large, into smaller slivers of value to optimize your flow.
-Don’t sweat it if you get it wrong, teams often do early on but improve over time.
Understanding the Agile Release and Sprint Planning Process John Derrico
How to easily understand the agile release and sprint planning process. Simple diagrams based on six sigma principles to clearly convey the goals of the planning process including the understanding of the customers as well as the inputs and outputs required for Agile Release and Sprint Planning ant tactics for success.
Sprint Planning in Scrum and How to do it without Tearing Your Eyes OutJason Knight
There are 4 formal events in Scrum:
Sprint Planning
The Daily Scrum
The Sprint Review
Sprint Retrospective
This talk walks through the Scrum Guide's description of Sprint Planning, an example Sprint Planning event, and some suggestions of how to run an effective Sprint Planning session without tearing your eyes out.
Backlog refinement is not a Scrum event, but instead is an ongoing activity during the Sprint required to decompose, describe, estimate, and order backlog items in the Product Backlog.
This material is divided into two sections. The first section reviews the basics of backlog refinement, covering various options for conducting the activity. The second section covers tips for maintaining a healthy backlog and potential anti-patterns.
This material was presented at Agile New England in July and August 2022 as "101" introduction and "202" advanced sessions.
Getting Started - Introduction to Backlog GroomingEasy Agile
Overview
- What is backlog grooming?
- Who should be involved in backlog grooming sessions
- Benefits of backlog grooming
- Guidelines for effective backlog grooming sessions
- Difference between backlog grooming and sprint planning
- Apple TV example
Agile Product Management: Getting from Backlog to ValueLeadingAgile
What does it take to create a backlog, build software, release features, and finally deliver value to your customers? From estimation to prioritization, to understanding an end-state vision of an organization, this deck helps you understand the value you're delivering to your users. Learn more about the principles of Agile Product Management in this slide deck from LeadingAgile, Senior Vice President and Executive Consultant, Adam Asch.
Leading a large-scale agile transformation isn’t about adopting a new set of attitudes, processes, and behaviors at the team level… it’s about helping your company deliver faster to market, and developing the ability to respond to a rapidly-changing competitive landscape. First and foremost, it’s about achieving business agility. Business agility comes from people having clarity of purpose, a willingness to be held accountable, and the ability to achieve measurable outcomes. Unfortunately, almost everything in modern organizations gets in the way of teams acting with any sort of autonomy. In most companies, achieving business agility requires significant organizational change.
Agile transformation necessitates a fundamental rethinking of how your company organizes for delivery, how it delivers value to its customers, and how it plans and measures outcomes. Agile transformation is about building enabling structures, aligning the flow of work, and measuring for outcomes based progress. It's about breaking dependencies. The reality is that this kind of change can only be led from the top. This talk will explore how executives can define an idealized end-state for the transformation, build a fiscally responsible iterative and incremental plan to realize that end-state, as well as techniques for tracking progress and managing change.
This is a short introduction to the practice of Sprint Planning in Scrum. It would be useful for people new to Scrum or Agile. For more, comment or write to read my blog : http://agilediary.wordpress.com/
Have you tried assessing the maturity of your Agile teams? Have you developed your own unique approach or adopted an approach found online? Have you found the assessments valuable and continued them?
This material introduces a very simple, straightforward approach for Agile and Scrum maturity assessments without the complexity and pitfalls of numerous more sophisticated approaches.
The author has used five different approaches to assess Agile maturity over the past decade, three developed by Agile coaching staff and two developed by himself, before adopting this simpler retrospective Agile maturity assessment.
Shared at Agile New England as an Agile 101 topic in June 2023.
Prioritization Techniques for Agile TeamsTarang Baxi
Have you ever been in a prioritization discussion where the only priorities are High, Higher, and Highest? Or tried using MoSCoW to prioritize user stories only to find
that 80% of the cards are 'Must Have'?
In this tutorial, we introduce a gamut of different prioritization methods, ranging from simple techniques like stacked ranking or MoSCoW that classify items along a single dimension to multi-dimensional techniques like priority quadrants, Story Maps, and Innovation Games®. We cover pruning feature trees, spending fake currency, and using visual metaphors, while truly identifying what the most important stuff really is. This was most recently presented at the Agile India 2013 conference in Bangalore.
Value Stream Management: Is Your Organization Ready?DevOps.com
Attend the next webinar in the Value Stream Management series to gain more insight into how Value Stream Management can provide a benefit to your organization. Value Stream Management has garnered a lot of attention in the past few months, but not all enterprises are ready to reap the benefits.
This session will cover the key components you need to provide a comprehensive internal assessment allowing you to determine how important a value stream management approach is for your organization. We’ll lay out the path, including how to:
Given that Agile is an iterative and incremental process, it should come as no surprise that there are different levels of Agile planning to help deliver value early while working toward a larger goal. To find success with Agile, it’s important to understand how to effectively plan at the release, iteration, story, and task levels.
What you’ll learn in this presentation:
• The basics of release and iteration planning.
• The differences between a release and an iteration.
• The basics of task planning.
This August Scrum Breakfast, we have a new speaker - Mr. Pedro Gonzalez - Scrum Master at TINYpulse.
He will bring us an interesting topic about Agile estimation using story points, giving some tips on why relative estimations are far better than absolutes, why we shouldn't spend too long in details, and other issues he has experienced himself with his team.
Getting Started - Introduction to Backlog GroomingEasy Agile
Overview
- What is backlog grooming?
- Who should be involved in backlog grooming sessions
- Benefits of backlog grooming
- Guidelines for effective backlog grooming sessions
- Difference between backlog grooming and sprint planning
- Apple TV example
Agile Product Management: Getting from Backlog to ValueLeadingAgile
What does it take to create a backlog, build software, release features, and finally deliver value to your customers? From estimation to prioritization, to understanding an end-state vision of an organization, this deck helps you understand the value you're delivering to your users. Learn more about the principles of Agile Product Management in this slide deck from LeadingAgile, Senior Vice President and Executive Consultant, Adam Asch.
Leading a large-scale agile transformation isn’t about adopting a new set of attitudes, processes, and behaviors at the team level… it’s about helping your company deliver faster to market, and developing the ability to respond to a rapidly-changing competitive landscape. First and foremost, it’s about achieving business agility. Business agility comes from people having clarity of purpose, a willingness to be held accountable, and the ability to achieve measurable outcomes. Unfortunately, almost everything in modern organizations gets in the way of teams acting with any sort of autonomy. In most companies, achieving business agility requires significant organizational change.
Agile transformation necessitates a fundamental rethinking of how your company organizes for delivery, how it delivers value to its customers, and how it plans and measures outcomes. Agile transformation is about building enabling structures, aligning the flow of work, and measuring for outcomes based progress. It's about breaking dependencies. The reality is that this kind of change can only be led from the top. This talk will explore how executives can define an idealized end-state for the transformation, build a fiscally responsible iterative and incremental plan to realize that end-state, as well as techniques for tracking progress and managing change.
This is a short introduction to the practice of Sprint Planning in Scrum. It would be useful for people new to Scrum or Agile. For more, comment or write to read my blog : http://agilediary.wordpress.com/
Have you tried assessing the maturity of your Agile teams? Have you developed your own unique approach or adopted an approach found online? Have you found the assessments valuable and continued them?
This material introduces a very simple, straightforward approach for Agile and Scrum maturity assessments without the complexity and pitfalls of numerous more sophisticated approaches.
The author has used five different approaches to assess Agile maturity over the past decade, three developed by Agile coaching staff and two developed by himself, before adopting this simpler retrospective Agile maturity assessment.
Shared at Agile New England as an Agile 101 topic in June 2023.
Prioritization Techniques for Agile TeamsTarang Baxi
Have you ever been in a prioritization discussion where the only priorities are High, Higher, and Highest? Or tried using MoSCoW to prioritize user stories only to find
that 80% of the cards are 'Must Have'?
In this tutorial, we introduce a gamut of different prioritization methods, ranging from simple techniques like stacked ranking or MoSCoW that classify items along a single dimension to multi-dimensional techniques like priority quadrants, Story Maps, and Innovation Games®. We cover pruning feature trees, spending fake currency, and using visual metaphors, while truly identifying what the most important stuff really is. This was most recently presented at the Agile India 2013 conference in Bangalore.
Value Stream Management: Is Your Organization Ready?DevOps.com
Attend the next webinar in the Value Stream Management series to gain more insight into how Value Stream Management can provide a benefit to your organization. Value Stream Management has garnered a lot of attention in the past few months, but not all enterprises are ready to reap the benefits.
This session will cover the key components you need to provide a comprehensive internal assessment allowing you to determine how important a value stream management approach is for your organization. We’ll lay out the path, including how to:
Given that Agile is an iterative and incremental process, it should come as no surprise that there are different levels of Agile planning to help deliver value early while working toward a larger goal. To find success with Agile, it’s important to understand how to effectively plan at the release, iteration, story, and task levels.
What you’ll learn in this presentation:
• The basics of release and iteration planning.
• The differences between a release and an iteration.
• The basics of task planning.
This August Scrum Breakfast, we have a new speaker - Mr. Pedro Gonzalez - Scrum Master at TINYpulse.
He will bring us an interesting topic about Agile estimation using story points, giving some tips on why relative estimations are far better than absolutes, why we shouldn't spend too long in details, and other issues he has experienced himself with his team.
Agile2022 What parkrun has taught me 2022-07-18.pdfMia Horrigan
’ve been doing Parkrun for a year now. Yes, I’m one of those crazy people that get up early every saturday morning and run 5 Kms with 166490 parkrunners across 20 countries and 1637 locations. After a while, something interesting happened, I was asked to explain estimation to a group of people new to agile ways of working and found that I could explain relative estimation by using my Parkrun experience with my friends.
The requirement is the same – run a distance of 5 kms. However, the time taken will vary widely between runners. Even though the parkrun is a set 5kms, it takes our whole group to finish anywhere between 20 – 55 mins. So why don’t we all finish at the same time? Well, there are a number of factors to consider including our fitness, age, equipment and expertise at running as well as the complexity of the course. The same is true with estimations for work products. There is natural variability between estimates by people based on context, team members capability and so forth.
As a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST), I have found Parkrun anecdotes a relatable way to explain some complex concepts such as velocity, pairing, relative estimation, sprinting, sustainable pace and more. This presentation is for people wanting to understand agile principles as it will share these and other training tips and techniques that you can use with your teams.
The adoption of digitalization has profoundly impacted the different aspects of business operations, especially marketing. Thanks to digitally-focused marketing campaigns, companies can boost their marketing strategies in a faster and more simplified manner. In theory, this makes it more convenient for them to respond to changes in unpredictable markets effectively.
However, transforming internal dot-com marketing operations in a scaled agile way has been truly challenging. Most enterprises are blocked from effectively enabling digital campaign and efficient acquisitions and conversions through a timely cross functional collaboration for delivery planning and execution among creative designers, content creators, IT development/QA, analytics, and publishing. Please join us for a case study review, sharing how a Silicon Valley S/W market leader has transformed their dot-com digital marketing operations using scaled agile transformation.
Slides to my Discovering Scrum Workshop in cooperation with RUMOS in Lisbon. Exercises include "Remember Heavan" (what was your best project?), Why waterfall and software development don't mix, How Scrum is different, and gathering requirements from stakeholders.
Sudheer Mechineni, Head of Application Frameworks, Standard Chartered Bank
Discover how Standard Chartered Bank harnessed the power of Neo4j to transform complex data access challenges into a dynamic, scalable graph database solution. This keynote will cover their journey from initial adoption to deploying a fully automated, enterprise-grade causal cluster, highlighting key strategies for modelling organisational changes and ensuring robust disaster recovery. Learn how these innovations have not only enhanced Standard Chartered Bank’s data infrastructure but also positioned them as pioneers in the banking sector’s adoption of graph technology.
Essentials of Automations: The Art of Triggers and Actions in FMESafe Software
In this second installment of our Essentials of Automations webinar series, we’ll explore the landscape of triggers and actions, guiding you through the nuances of authoring and adapting workspaces for seamless automations. Gain an understanding of the full spectrum of triggers and actions available in FME, empowering you to enhance your workspaces for efficient automation.
We’ll kick things off by showcasing the most commonly used event-based triggers, introducing you to various automation workflows like manual triggers, schedules, directory watchers, and more. Plus, see how these elements play out in real scenarios.
Whether you’re tweaking your current setup or building from the ground up, this session will arm you with the tools and insights needed to transform your FME usage into a powerhouse of productivity. Join us to discover effective strategies that simplify complex processes, enhancing your productivity and transforming your data management practices with FME. Let’s turn complexity into clarity and make your workspaces work wonders!
Elevating Tactical DDD Patterns Through Object CalisthenicsDorra BARTAGUIZ
After immersing yourself in the blue book and its red counterpart, attending DDD-focused conferences, and applying tactical patterns, you're left with a crucial question: How do I ensure my design is effective? Tactical patterns within Domain-Driven Design (DDD) serve as guiding principles for creating clear and manageable domain models. However, achieving success with these patterns requires additional guidance. Interestingly, we've observed that a set of constraints initially designed for training purposes remarkably aligns with effective pattern implementation, offering a more ‘mechanical’ approach. Let's explore together how Object Calisthenics can elevate the design of your tactical DDD patterns, offering concrete help for those venturing into DDD for the first time!
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 5DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 5. In this session, we will cover CI/CD with devops.
Topics covered:
CI/CD with in UiPath
End-to-end overview of CI/CD pipeline with Azure devops
Speaker:
Lyndsey Byblow, Test Suite Sales Engineer @ UiPath, Inc.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Communications Mining Series - Zero to Hero - Session 1DianaGray10
This session provides introduction to UiPath Communication Mining, importance and platform overview. You will acquire a good understand of the phases in Communication Mining as we go over the platform with you. Topics covered:
• Communication Mining Overview
• Why is it important?
• How can it help today’s business and the benefits
• Phases in Communication Mining
• Demo on Platform overview
• Q/A
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
DevOps and Testing slides at DASA ConnectKari Kakkonen
My and Rik Marselis slides at 30.5.2024 DASA Connect conference. We discuss about what is testing, then what is agile testing and finally what is Testing in DevOps. Finally we had lovely workshop with the participants trying to find out different ways to think about quality and testing in different parts of the DevOps infinity loop.
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
Why You Should Replace Windows 11 with Nitrux Linux 3.5.0 for enhanced perfor...SOFTTECHHUB
The choice of an operating system plays a pivotal role in shaping our computing experience. For decades, Microsoft's Windows has dominated the market, offering a familiar and widely adopted platform for personal and professional use. However, as technological advancements continue to push the boundaries of innovation, alternative operating systems have emerged, challenging the status quo and offering users a fresh perspective on computing.
One such alternative that has garnered significant attention and acclaim is Nitrux Linux 3.5.0, a sleek, powerful, and user-friendly Linux distribution that promises to redefine the way we interact with our devices. With its focus on performance, security, and customization, Nitrux Linux presents a compelling case for those seeking to break free from the constraints of proprietary software and embrace the freedom and flexibility of open-source computing.
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Generative AI Deep Dive: Advancing from Proof of Concept to ProductionAggregage
Join Maher Hanafi, VP of Engineering at Betterworks, in this new session where he'll share a practical framework to transform Gen AI prototypes into impactful products! He'll delve into the complexities of data collection and management, model selection and optimization, and ensuring security, scalability, and responsible use.
7. Business Goals to
Releases
• Starting with goals and vision
• Epics -> Features -> User Stories
• Story maps and MMFs
• Estimating and planning
8. Elaboration / Decomposition
High Medium Small Details
Level Just In Time
Business Rules
Story 1
Feature A
Acceptance Tests
Epic Story 2
Feature A UI Wireframe
Story 3
Activity Diagram
Tasks
Just in Time Requirements Breakdown... More Definition
9. Release Planning Purpose
• Plan a release based upon:
– Most important features to be delivered
– Capacity of the delivery teams
10. Release Planning Overview
• Participants
– Product owners or a product owner team
– Architecture
– Delivery team (programmers, QA, analysts, etc.)
• Logistics
– Performed prior to release work beginning
– Takes ½ - 2 days depending upon release size,
complexity, and number of teams
11. Release Planning Overview
• Inputs
– Strategy, vision, goals
– Candidate set of features / stories
• Outputs
– Release Vision
– Release Plan
– Architectural Approach
– Testing Approach
12. Release Planning Overview
• Activities
– Business reviews strategy, vision, goals
– Features are discussed and analyzed
– User stories continue to be identified and estimated
– User stories are selected based upon team velocity
and responsible buffering
– Risks are identified
13. What Is A Vision?
• Describes the problem being solved for a
release
• Describe a product solution
• Provides a list of features delivered in the
release
• Creates shared understanding of purpose
14. Vision: Problem Statement
The problem of Having to run to the rental store
Affects People who want to easily watch movies
The impact of which is Wasted time, effort, and cost to travel
to a store to pick from a limited
A successful solution would selection
Allow a user to select movies they want
to see and have them shipped to their
home with a postage paid return
15. Vision: Product Position
For People
Who Want to watch movies at home
The ShipFlix system Is a web-based membership system
That Allows consumers to queue up movies to
watch and to be delivered to their home
Unlike Local DVD rental stores
Our product Will automatically ship DVDs to a person’s
home allowing them to keep 2 disks out at
any time providing pre-paid envelopes so the
16. Epics and Features
• Break the Vision down into:
– Epics: High level outcomes needed to accomplish
the Vision and
– Features: Specific changes needed to deliver the
Epics
• These can be estimated at a high level to
determine the product road-map
17. Epics collections of features, typically 1-3 months in
Epic duration. Epics span releases. Epics can span more than
one team. These are the things the market cares about.
18. Epics collections of features, typically 1-3 months in
Epic duration. Epics span releases. Epics can span more than
one team. These are the things the market cares about.
Features are smaller than epics, typically 2-4 weeks in
Feature duration. Features are contained within releases. Ideally,
features are contained within a team. These are what the
Product Owner Cares about.
19. Epics collections of features, typically 1-3 months in
Epic duration. Epics span releases. Epics can span more than
one team. These are the things the market cares about.
Features are smaller than epics, typically 2-4 weeks in
Feature duration. Features are contained within releases. Ideally,
features are contained within a team. These are what the
Product Owner Cares about.
User Stories are the smallest increment of value, typically
User
less than a week. User Stories are contained within sprint.
Story
These are the things Engineering Management Cares
about.
20. For Each Release:
• Give it a name or statement that describes the
purpose
• Describe the benefits and goals for the
business
• Describe the benefits or value the users get
Release 1: Two DVDs out to
customers
Business Value: Begin creating a
user base to offer more profitable
capabilities
User Value: Ability to have two
21. Release Planning
• A Release Plan is a roadmap for communicating
with project stakeholders
• It is created to communicate when there will be
releases and what features will be in them
• Often takes the form of a Story Map
22. Release Planning Meeting
Release Planning Inputs
• A business value focused goal for the release
• A prioritized set of features or user stories –
business value ranking
• A course estimate for features or stories
• Risks associated with features or stories
• A date for the release
23. Release Planning Meeting
Release Planning Process
• The delivery team assesses the groomed backlog
• Review the sizing, resize if the team doesn’t agree
• Split stories into smaller than a sprint sizes (3 – 4
days to complete)
• Order the stories into the current release, the
following release, and future releases
• Prioritize the stories and risks in the current
release
24. Story Mapping
• An approach to organizing and prioritizing user
stories
• Is a tool to help in defining a roadmap
25. Benefits of Story Mapping
• Provides visibility of the workflow across the
system
• Points out relationships between stories
• Helps to spotlight missing stories
• Provides a prioritization mechanism
• Release planning is improved by focusing on
valuable slices
26. Preparing for Story Mapping
• Understand the users/roles using the system
• The major activities performed by the users of
the system
• Arrange activities in the order they are
performed
• Define stories required to complete activities
28. Buffering
• Buffers for both knows and unknowns
• Plan for Dark Matter: Stuff we know is out there
• Plan for an Iteration 0 if needed
– Establish any needed Build, Continuous
Integration, Walking Skeleton, Spikes,
Developer Environments
• Plan for a Hardening Iteration in a complex
environment
40. Estimating Initial Velocity
• Ask the team the following question:
“Which stories do you think you can commit to
getting ‘Done’ from this release during the first
iteration? Be realistic in your commitment
based on your capacity.”
• These stories makeup their initial velocity.
• You can also do a ‘Mock Planning Meeting’
• Example: a team thinks they can get the first 4
stories on the list completed which total 15
points.
41. Developing the Release Plan
At this point it is possible to determine the time required to
complete the work.
Backlog: 225 points
Historic or initial velocity: 25 points per sprint
Buffering: 20%
Planning Velocity: 20 points
Extra Iterations: • 2 extra sprints
• Sprint Zero: 1 sprint
• Hardening: 1 sprint
Iteration length: 2 weeks
42. Developing the Release Plan
At this point it is possible to determine the time required to
complete the work.
Backlog: 225 points
Historic or initial velocity: 25 points per sprint
Buffering: 20%
Planning Velocity: 20 points
Extra Iterations: • 2 extra sprints
• Sprint Zero: 1 sprint
• Hardening: 1 sprint
Iteration length: 2 weeks
Roughly we need 32 weeks to get the project
done.
43. Example With Internal Releases
(10-15%: Schedule percentages are approximate and will vary by domain, but show typical agile project activity
splits)
10 -15%
Schedule 80% - 85% Schedule 5%
Upfront Close-
Planning
0 20 20 20 0 20 20 20 0 20 20 20 0 20 20 20 0
Out
Iteration 0
Development
Iterations
Releases
Stabilization/ Hardening/Pre-release
Iteration
Assuming your initial velocity is 20pts/iteration
Capacity per release = 60pts without any buffering
32
44. At the End of Release Planning
• We know the purpose of the project
• The team is aligned
• We have an estimated project backlog
• We have a roadmap (we know how many
iterations and releases we have)
• We know which stories are part of our first
release
45. Create A Release Plan
• Review goals, objectives, and architectural
description
• Plan the first 3 sprints
• Log into the system and schedule payment to
payee the customer sets up in the system
• Validate the user experience and enough of the
architecture to reduce technical risks
• Team velocity averages 10 points per sprint
Here is a complete breakdown of the hierarchy from Epic to Task\nEPIC/Theme: have all been used to describe a larger piece of requirement that may include multiple features within it. \nEpic is used to describe functionality that is too big to get done within a sprint and needs to be broken down to a smaller chunk.. \nFeature: a medium sized, business understandable description of functionality. You may have some of these on your list as placeholders that you breakdown and estimate when you’re ready to include them in the next release\nStory: Small valuable business requirement that follows the INVEST attributes\n
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The hierarchy of requirements goes:\nEpics – business oriented components of the project vision, then\nFeatures – specific components of epics, but probably still too large to accurately estimate or deliver in an iteration.\n
Explaining the hierarchy of value\n
Explaining the hierarchy of value\n
Explaining the hierarchy of value\n
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Release planning is the process of deciding when the project will releases and what will be in those releases.\n\nTypically we have more detail about what exactly will be in the next release and less detail about what will be in subsequent releases\nHowever there needs to be a reasonable and defendable plan for completing all the agreed work within the available time otherwise we need to discuss resceduling or de-scoping the project\n
Inputs into the Release Planning meeting include:\n A business value focused goal for the release – e.g. “the basic movie renting and buying release to get some revenue”\n A prioritized set of user stories – business value ranking – stories that support renting and buying movies\n A course estimate for each story – t-shirt size estimate – with a level of confidence from the team that these look acheivable\n Risks associated with the stories – what might we need to watch out for?\n A date for the release – E.g. May 15th \n\nIt is the team and not the product owner or scrum master that needs to determine what is feasible. \nThe PO sets priority but cannot influence estimates\n
Inputs into the Release Planning meeting include:\n A business value focused goal for the release – e.g. “the basic movie renting and buying release to get some revenue”\n A prioritized set of user stories – business value ranking – stories that support renting and buying movies\n A course estimate for each story – t-shirt size estimate – with a level of confidence from the team that these look acheivable\n Risks associated with the stories – what might we need to watch out for?\n A date for the release – E.g. May 15th \n\nIt is the team and not the product owner or scrum master that needs to determine what is feasible. \nThe PO sets priority but cannot influence estimates\n
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By estimating average velocity, you can begin to determine how many iterations it will take on average to complete all the work on the backlog.\nIn this example, there is 48 points total, the team’s average velocity is 12 pts, this means it will take a min of 4 iterations to get this done. \nNext we’ll talk about additional iterations you need to add to the estimate. \n
By estimating average velocity, you can begin to determine how many iterations it will take on average to complete all the work on the backlog.\nIn this example, there is 48 points total, the team’s average velocity is 12 pts, this means it will take a min of 4 iterations to get this done. \nNext we’ll talk about additional iterations you need to add to the estimate. \n
By estimating average velocity, you can begin to determine how many iterations it will take on average to complete all the work on the backlog.\nIn this example, there is 48 points total, the team’s average velocity is 12 pts, this means it will take a min of 4 iterations to get this done. \nNext we’ll talk about additional iterations you need to add to the estimate. \n
By estimating average velocity, you can begin to determine how many iterations it will take on average to complete all the work on the backlog.\nIn this example, there is 48 points total, the team’s average velocity is 12 pts, this means it will take a min of 4 iterations to get this done. \nNext we’ll talk about additional iterations you need to add to the estimate. \n
By estimating average velocity, you can begin to determine how many iterations it will take on average to complete all the work on the backlog.\nIn this example, there is 48 points total, the team’s average velocity is 12 pts, this means it will take a min of 4 iterations to get this done. \nNext we’ll talk about additional iterations you need to add to the estimate. \n
By estimating average velocity, you can begin to determine how many iterations it will take on average to complete all the work on the backlog.\nIn this example, there is 48 points total, the team’s average velocity is 12 pts, this means it will take a min of 4 iterations to get this done. \nNext we’ll talk about additional iterations you need to add to the estimate. \n
By estimating average velocity, you can begin to determine how many iterations it will take on average to complete all the work on the backlog.\nIn this example, there is 48 points total, the team’s average velocity is 12 pts, this means it will take a min of 4 iterations to get this done. \nNext we’ll talk about additional iterations you need to add to the estimate. \n
By estimating average velocity, you can begin to determine how many iterations it will take on average to complete all the work on the backlog.\nIn this example, there is 48 points total, the team’s average velocity is 12 pts, this means it will take a min of 4 iterations to get this done. \nNext we’ll talk about additional iterations you need to add to the estimate. \n
By estimating average velocity, you can begin to determine how many iterations it will take on average to complete all the work on the backlog.\nIn this example, there is 48 points total, the team’s average velocity is 12 pts, this means it will take a min of 4 iterations to get this done. \nNext we’ll talk about additional iterations you need to add to the estimate. \n
By estimating average velocity, you can begin to determine how many iterations it will take on average to complete all the work on the backlog.\nIn this example, there is 48 points total, the team’s average velocity is 12 pts, this means it will take a min of 4 iterations to get this done. \nNext we’ll talk about additional iterations you need to add to the estimate. \n
By estimating average velocity, you can begin to determine how many iterations it will take on average to complete all the work on the backlog.\nIn this example, there is 48 points total, the team’s average velocity is 12 pts, this means it will take a min of 4 iterations to get this done. \nNext we’ll talk about additional iterations you need to add to the estimate. \n
The team will not know there velocity for the first iteration so it must be based upon the team’s capacity and understanding they must meet the definition of “done” for their stories. Teams are optimistic about their initial velocity and that needs to be considered during this planning. The teams pick those stories they feel confident they can complete and the total of those story points become their initial velocity.\n\nTo gain a better understanding of what they can accomplish a team might go through a mock planning meeting. The team will break down stories into tasks to provide additional confidence that they can commit to the number of story points they have selected.\n
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Here we see how a project can have one or more releases and a release consists of one or more iterations. \nUpfront we may have an iteration 0 that establishes the development environment and tools. The remainder of the iterations will most likely be for adding functionality and will have associated velocity scores (the “20”s in the image above), but some iterations might be for hardening and stabilization and will not deliver new functionality.\n
Each of these items are now available by the end of release planning. This sets the team up for iteration planning.\n