2. AGENDA
The good, bad and ugly of planning
What is necessary for good plans to emerge?
Walk through the mechanics of planning
Closing remarks / Q&A
3. “Plans are worthless but planning is everything.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
What makes a good plan?
What are some of the key components of planning?
How do you know planning went well?
Group Activity
4. If you don’t know what’s being asked of you, how
can you plan?
Last responsible moment is at the planning table
Stories are well understood (DoR)
Stories sized
UACs
Refine, refine, refine – it’s hard work but necessary
5. Set the stage
PO helps set the theme or goal of the sprint
Keep in mind any improvement opportunities
learned from previous sprint(s)
Be mindful of metrics
6. Review of “ready” stories that align with
sprint goal
Everyone involved – participation is crucial
Review/confirm story points
Continue pulling stories that meet our goal until
we’ve reached our “limit”
7. Detail the work – Task it out
DevTeam does this as a group
Estimate tasks
8. Commit
Make an honest commitment to complete the work
Validate your estimates against your proven metrics
When you COMMIT, what does that mean?
9. Common signs of poor planning
Not meeting our commitment
Planning meeting long and painful
Velocity metric is all over the board
Others?
Improve by preparing
Use the data to your advantage – learn from it
Everyone has responsibility and a voice
Editor's Notes
Have these three questions and stickies available (3 flip charts)
10 mins
In order for good plans to emerge… we must invest time preparing
Refine stories
Size them
Get to know them
Stress the importance that refinement is where we prepare for planning
Improvements: Invest time in improving… you had a Retro, now do something about it
Metrics
Capacity
Velocity
Predictability
Stories that meet our DoR and align with the goal are candidates
Stories should already be pointed but some may need to change
Don’t get stuck in tasks looking like:
Develop Code = 28 hours
Test Code = 16 hours
Why involve everyone? What if you don’t have any domain knowledge?
Five of five voting
5 = Absolutely, best idea ever!
4 = I like the idea, sounds good.
3 = I will support it and can live with it.
2 = I have concerns but maybe we can figure out an option. I’d prefer to resolve the concerns before supporting it.
1 = No way! It’s a terrible idea and will not go along with it.
Say what you mean, mean what you say