1. Agile Project Management
Deep Dive into Project Planning
Date: March 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010

2. Agenda
✤ Introductions
✤ Introduction to Agile
✤ Deep Dive into the Principles
and Practices of Agile Planning
✤ Working Lunch & Games
✤ Pilot Project Planning
✤ Retrospective
Thursday, April 8, 2010

3. 1. Introductions
Let’s Get to Know Each Other
Thursday, April 8, 2010

4. Introduction to ShoreTel
Introductions by Team Members
Thursday, April 8, 2010

5. Introduction to Winn Dixie
Introductions by Team Members
Thursday, April 8, 2010

6. Intro to Siraj
✤ 19 years experience with
process improvement
consulting and coaching.
✤ excellent track record of
coaching leaders and teams on
process improvement (Kanban,
Agile, Scrum, CMMI, SOX)
✤ broad and deep (varied
domain / functional)
experience.
Thursday, April 8, 2010

7. My Goals for Today
✤ “We are here to learn, have fun and make a difference” - Deming
✤ Provide Conceptual Inputs to the Team on Agile.
✤ Deep Dive into Agile Project Planning - Principles, Practices & Issues.
✤ Work with the Team to Plan their Pilot Project. Identify action items
for the Team to work on until we meet next. Address concerns. Clarify
Concepts.
✤ Mentor PM / Scrum Master on his / her role.
Thursday, April 8, 2010

8. 2. Introduction to Agile
History, Concepts and Current State of Agile
Thursday, April 8, 2010

9. History
✤ 1940s to now - Deming, TPS /
Toyota Way and Lean.
✤ 1986 - The New New Product
Development Game
✤ 2001 - The Agile Manifesto
✤ 2000-now - Scrum, XP, Crystal,
DSDM, FDD, Lean, Kanban.
✤ 2010 - what’s next
Thursday, April 8, 2010

10. Agile Concepts I
✤ Incremental Business Value ✤ Retrospectives
✤ Roles - Scrum Master, Product ✤ Co-Location
Owner, Team
✤ Product Backlog (Prioritization,
✤ Planning (Release and User Stories)
Iterations)
✤ Estimation (Planning Poker,
✤ Visualization (Task Board) Sizing, Story Points)
✤ Daily Standup ✤ Velocity (BU / BD Charts)
✤ Reviews / Demos ✤ Scrum of Scrums
Thursday, April 8, 2010

11. Agile Concepts II
✤ Self Organizing ✤ Agile Values, Principles and
Team Behaviors
✤ Agile Technology Practices
(TDD, CI, CD, Automated
Testing, Pair Programming,
Refactoring,Coding Standards)
✤ PM Concepts (Risk
Management, Issue
Management, Schedule
Management, Cost and
Budgeting, Scope Management)
Thursday, April 8, 2010

12. Agile Concepts III (Agilisms)
✤ Give Up Hope (Requirements ✤ Scrumbut
Change)
✤ Technical Debt
✤ Fail Fast
✤ Chickens & Pigs
✤ Release Early, Release Often
✤ Inspect & Adapt
✤ Done means Done
✤ Smells
Thursday, April 8, 2010

13. Current State I
Agile Methods
Thursday, April 8, 2010

14. Current State II
Agile Techniques
Thursday, April 8, 2010

15. Current State III
Benefits from Agile Adoption
Thursday, April 8, 2010

16. Current StateIV
✤ Barriers to Further Adoption of
Agile
✤ Management opposition and
Lack of Upfront Planning
✤ Question: Is this a concern you
have for your team / project?
Thursday, April 8, 2010

17. Current State V
✤ Greatest Concerns About
Adopting Agile
✤ Lack of Upfront Planning
✤ Lack of Documentation
✤ Question: Is this a concern you
have for your team / project?
Thursday, April 8, 2010

18. Questions
Your Questions on Agile Concepts
Thursday, April 8, 2010

19. Break 1
Go Fly and Come Back in 10 mins!
Thursday, April 8, 2010

20. 3. Agile Planning
Deep Dive into the Principles, Practices & Issues of Agile Planning
Thursday, April 8, 2010

21. Review
✤ Greatest Concerns About
Adopting Agile
✤ Lack of Upfront Planning
✤ Lack of Documentation
✤ Question: Is this a concern you
have for your team / project?
Thursday, April 8, 2010

22. Planning Principles
✤ Predictability ✤ Inspect and Adapt
✤ Discipline ✤ Feedback from Customers
✤ Flow
✤ Cadence
✤ Release Early, Release Often
✤ Fail Fast
✤ Manage Obstacles
Thursday, April 8, 2010

23. Planning Context
✤ Context, Context, Context !!
✤ Enterprise or Product Development Shop.
✤ Product or Application Development Team vs Infrastructure.
✤ Co-located vs Distributed Teams.
✤ Agile Initiative Sponsor - Executive vs Project Management.
✤ Agile Adoption - Enterprise vs Pilot Team/s.
Thursday, April 8, 2010

24. Planning Onion
✤ The Discipline of Agile
Planning
✤ A Planning Discipline for the
entire company / team.
✤ Enterprise Planning
✤ Release Planning
✤ Iteration Planning
✤ Daily Stand ups
Thursday, April 8, 2010

25. Planning Practices - Enterprise
✤ Agile Initiative Sponsorship ✤ Preliminary meeting with PO to
Process - Selection of Pilot prepare ID MMFs and User
Projects / Teams Stories, Prioritize and Create
Product Backlog
✤ Training / Briefing Team
members and Product Owners ✤ Enterprise Release / Planning
Calendar
✤ Project Governance (Charter,
Scope, Budgets, Hiring, Vendor ✤ Retrospective
Contracts etc)
✤ Co-location -Work area /
Conference Room set up
Thursday, April 8, 2010

26. Planning Practices - Release
✤ Release Planning Cadence ✤ Studying the Team Velocity
(yesterday’s weather). BU/BD
✤ Planning Session Agenda Charts
Templates
✤ Feedback from Previous
✤ Release Backlog Template Retrospective
✤ Preparation for Planning ✤ How much can be done in this
Sessions (by Role - PO, SM, Release?
Team)
✤ Stabilization Iteration.
✤ MMF (minimal marketable
features) and / or User Stories
Thursday, April 8, 2010

27. Planning Practices - Iterations
✤ Iteration Planning Cadence ✤ Studying the Team Velocity
(yesterday’s weather). BU/BD
✤ Planning Session Agenda Charts
Templates
✤ Planning Poker
✤ Iteration Backlog Template
✤ Story Points
✤ Preparation for Planning
Sessions (by Role - PO, SM, ✤ How much can be done in this
Team) Iteration? Selecting User Stories
✤ Feedback from Previous ✤ Visualizing the Team Board
Retrospective
Thursday, April 8, 2010

28. Planning Practices-Daily Standup
✤ Daily Stand-up Cadence ✤ Following up for Specific
Obstacles (SM)
✤ Preparation for Daily Stand ups
(by Role - PO, SM, Team) ✤ Collecting data on stories
complete / story points /
✤ Visualizing the Team Board updating charts on Agile PM
(updating tasks / stickies) Tool (SM)
✤ Referring to BU / BD ✤ Encouraging & Ensuring Team
follows Agile Dev practices
✤ Daily Standup Drill(3 (SM)
questions)
Thursday, April 8, 2010

29. Planning Issues I
✤ Depth of Product Management ✤ Not releasing often
Team’s knowledge / lack of
product strategy / roadmap. ✤ Lack of Engineering Discipline
needed for Agile Releases
✤ Good prioritization of the
product backlog. ✤ Agile PM Tool - How do we
keep track of data (product
✤ Death by meeting ! backlog, MMF, stories, story
points, velocity)?
✤ Not doing Retrospectives
✤
✤ Not implementing feedback
from Retrospectives
Thursday, April 8, 2010

30. Planning Issues II
✤ Release Planning only - ✤ How do we compare Story
Iteration-less Agile / Kanban Points across teams /
companies?
✤ Lack of quorum at Planning
Meetings ✤ The fine art of splitting user
stories
✤ How long is the release cycle?
✤ Planning for contingencies
✤ How long is the iteration cycle?
✤ Is planning worth the extra
✤ When do we schedule these effort
meetings?
✤ Aligning with SOX / PMBOK
Thursday, April 8, 2010

31. Reviews & Retrospectives
✤ Review Cadence ✤ Retrospective Cadence
✤ Review Agenda Template ✤ Retrospective Agenda Template
✤ Prep for Reviews (Demo ✤ Prep for Retrospective
Room / Infrastructure / Script)
✤ Capturing Feedback (SM)
✤ Roles for PO / SM / Team
✤ Escalation / Resolution /
✤ Capturing Feedback (SM) Implementation of feedback
Thursday, April 8, 2010

32. Questions
Your Questions on Agile Planning
Thursday, April 8, 2010

33. Working Lunch
Informal Discussions with Team!
Thursday, April 8, 2010

34. 4. Pilot Project
Applying Agile Planning Concepts to a Specific Project + Creation of Artifacts
Thursday, April 8, 2010

35. Break 2
Go Fly and Come Back in 10 mins!
Thursday, April 8, 2010

36. 4. Pilot Project (contd)
Conducting Mock Planning Sessions + Review of Planning Artifacts Created
Thursday, April 8, 2010

37. 5. Retrospective
Feedback & Lessons Learned
Thursday, April 8, 2010

38. Gratitude
Thank You and Best of Luck
Siraj@sirajuddin.com / 202-415-2138
Thursday, April 8, 2010