Many agile teams attempt to plan for an entire quarter at a time. Something changes—a better product opportunity, or a product development problem—and the quarter’s plan is not just at risk. That plan is now impossible. Instead of quarterly planning, consider continual planning. Continual planning allows a project or a program to use small deliverables to plan for the near future and rolling waves to replan often to deliver the most value.

1. Think Big, Plan Small:
How to Use Continual
Planning
Johanna Rothman
@johannarothman
www.jrothman.com
jr@jrothman.com
781-641-4046

2. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
In preparing for battle, I have always
found that plans are useless, but
planning is indispensable.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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3. Why We Plan
• Achieve some specific
result, some deliverable
• Set “expectations” for
deliverable(s)
• Forecast date and cost
• Manage risks

4. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
What We Need from Plans
• Resilience
• Larger the effort, the
more resilience we need
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5. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Common Roadmap
(Time-Based Wishlist)
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6. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Different Projects Require
Different Planning Horizons
• One-delivery projects (serial life cycle) have no specific
feedback for replanning
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7. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Quarterly Planning
• Plan once a quarter
• “How much can we get
into a quarter’s worth of
plan?”
• Can we get the project/
program to commit?
• “Push” planning
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8. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Value of Big Planning
• See interdependencies
• Create informal CoP
• Get to know each other,
especially if distributed
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9. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Big Plans Gone Wild
• Lots of prep
• Lots of people
• High meeting cost
• Time and money
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10. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Problems with Larger
Planning
• “I believe!”
• Roadmap becomes a
committed plan
• Estimation uncertainty
increases farther out
• Interdependency
uncertainty increases
farther out
• Larger planning creates less
adaptability
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11. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Assumptions Big Plans Make
• Even distribution of
features across the
backlogs (feature sets)
• Arrival rate is predictable
for more features
• Value of all features is
similar
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12. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Reality of Plans…
• Some feature sets have
more changes, more
features
• Arrival rate of changes/new
features is unpredictable
• Some features more
valuable than others
• Leads to “more” &
“change”
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13. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Deliverables and Planning
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Small Plans Gone Wild
• Only look ahead for one
week or two
• No strategic intent
• How can you tell if you’re
achieving business value?
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15. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Large efforts require small
stories, small planning for faster
throughput and feedback.
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16. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Large/Uncertain Efforts
• Need more feedback
• More releases (at least,
internal)
• More integration
• More estimation required
for a time-based roadmap
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17. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Why This Need for “More” &
Change?
• Guesses abound!
• Sizing
• What the PO/PM wants
• What the org needs
• Market changes
• We learn
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18. Invite Change with Build-
Measure-Learn Loop
• Break ideas down into small chunks of
value
• Build one small chunk
• Create this minimum product
• How little can you do and still
validate a business hypothesis?
(MVP)
• How little can you do to learn?
(MVE)
• Measure the effects with data
• Learn from releasing that and integrate
the learning back into the ideas

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“How Much” vs.“How Little”
• “How much” thinking is from
serial planning
• One delivery means everyone
wants their stuff in now,
because who knows when the
team will be able to deliver
again?
• “How little” allows for change
and can create a more adaptive
project
• How little can we do to deliver
value?
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20. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Product vs. Internal Releasing
• You can release internally at least once a month regardless of
how frequently your customers see new product
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21. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Rolling Wave Planning
• Uses feedback from MVPs and
MVEs to create the next plan(s)
• Decide on the duration of your
wave
• Plan the first chunk, part of your
wave
• Create suppositions for the
next bit
• As you finish the first chunk,
(re)plan the next
• Maintain the wave
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22. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Two-Month Rolling Wave
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After One Iteration…
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24. Rolling Waves Help
Sequencing
• MVPs and MVEs allow
sequencing of
deliverables
• One month wave; two
months look ahead

25. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
After Next Iteration
• Required more change
• Much of the story
breakdown work was
unnecessary—for now
• Created WIP
• PO and the Team had low
morale
• No one saw the value in the
planning except the execs…
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26. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Smaller the Wave, More
Options
• One-month rolling wave
provides more options for
replanning
• Continuous planning
works with continuous
delivery
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27. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Consider Continual Planning
• Continual: frequently
recurring
• Start and stop, but the
interval is small
• I’ve used monthly, but you
might consider biweekly
or weekly
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One-Month Rolling Wave
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After One Week…
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After Two Weeks…
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Team Changes Over Wave
• Smaller stories
• PO worked with the team
more often
• Story workshops to define
MVE and MVP
• Team delivered more
smaller features faster
• Cadence of planning and
demos
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32. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Continual Planning
• Replan as often as the
team delivers value
• Options:
• ProductValue Team
meeting
• Ask everyone to plan
every month
• Together and at
distance
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Variety of Teams
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ProductValue Team
• Strategic intent of
product
• Why this product? Why
now? What impact will
we have?
• Impact map
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35. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Roadmap vs. Portfolio
• The product roadmap optimizes for this product’s
capabilities
• The project portfolio optimizes for the organization’s
strategy
• A given product release fulfills a part of the
organization’s strategy
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36. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
ProductValue Team Decides
on ProductValue Over Time
• Strategic decisions
• Consider Cost of
Delay when deciding
strategy
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Product (Owner)Value Team
• Product manager
• Externally-oriented,
customer-facing
• Product Owner
• Internally-oriented,
team-facing
• With multiple feature
teams, a PO for each team
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38. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
ProductValue Team Replans
• What value has the
program/project
delivered?
• What would provide
more value if we changed
the rank, added, or
subtracted?
• Are we done yet? (Have
we provided enough value
that we can stop?)
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39. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Slicing vs. Curlicue Features
• Less frequently we plan, the more we tolerate curlicue features
• Don’t deal with root cause of interdependencies
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40. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Replanning as Teams
• Value in monthly or biweekly
meetings:
• See interdependencies
• Consider reforming teams
• Create informal CoP
• Build the small-world
network
• Not much prep or planning
because meeting more often
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41. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Common Roadmap Approach:
Time-Based Wishlist
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Scope-Based Roadmap
(Still Wishlist)
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43. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Pull Assumes Plans Will
Change
• Pull-based approach helps
people expect change (as
opposed to commitment)
• Optimizes for “How
little”
• Less need for estimates,
at the beginning
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44. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Planning Questions to Ponder
• How little can we plan?
• How little can we deliver
before we replan?
• Is this a strategic or tactical
plan?
• How long is our rolling wave
now? Is that working for us?
• Do we need more or less
planning/replanning?
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45. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Possibly Useful Guidelines
• Plan/replan as often as the fastest
team delivers value
• Consider different triggers for
replanning:
• Market changes
• Value delivery
• Customer feedback
• How little can you plan at one
time?
• How often can you plan/replan?
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46. © 2017 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman
Let’s Stay in Touch
• Pragmatic Managers
• Blog posts on
www.jrothman.com/blog/mpd
• PO workshop
• Stay in touch?
• Pragmatic Manager:
www.jrothman.com/
pragmaticmanager
• Please link with me on
LinkedIn
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