CHAPTER VI Adaptive Planning -… À L'ecole De La VIE …

CHAPTER VI Adaptive planning

PRACTICE TOOL/TECHNIQUE SKILL LEVEL Planning concepts  Timeboxing Level 2 Value based analysis  Progressive elaboration Level 1 Value based decomposition &  Process tailoring prioritization  Minimal marketable failure Level 3 Agile games Estimation  Widebrand Delphi & planning poker Level 1 Baselines time & budget  Ideal time Level 3 Agile cost accounting  Relative sizing & story points  Afinity estimating Agile plans  Iteration & release Level 1 Agile charters Level 2 Business case Planning concepts

. Acceptance that things will change and the resulting realization better embraces uncertainty then to resist to change

• TIMEBOXING : timeboxes are short, fixed duration periods in which activities or work is undertaken. 2 major timeboxes : Daily stand-ups (15 minutes) & Iterations (mostly 2 or 3 weeks) . They provide frequent checkpoints to gauge progress and to replan the ongoing approach . They are powerful motivation tools for completing focused work

Planning concepts

• PROGRESSIVE ELABORATION : At the beginning we need to plan & estimate the work involved and create a reasonable strategy & execution approach. We must continually refine plans & estimates Planning concepts

• PROCESS TAILORING : Retrospectives and reviews are the main trigger for driving process changes. At the end of each iteration, we meet with the team and ask following questions : • What is going well ? • What areas could use improvement ? • What should we be doing differently ? • Through this cycle of regular inspection, reflection & adaption, we tailor our project processes to the unique situation of the project and organization. Planning concepts

• MINIMAL MARKETABLE FEATURE (MMF) : The term MMF refers to the package of functionnalities that is complete enough to be useful to users or market, yet small enough that it does not represent the entire project. For exemple, if order & billing system is complete but the management reporting and marketing links have not been built yet, the company may start getting benefits of this first release. Planning concepts

 Value-based analysis : Is the process of considering the business value of work items and the acting accordingly. Business value impacts how we scope, plan, schedule, develop, test, and release work.  This is one reason while we estimate the items in the backlog item at a high level early at the project. Planning concepts

 Value-based Decomposition & Prioritization : Planning concepts

 Agile games : are facilitated workshop that help stakeholders better understand complex or ambiguous issues and reach agreement on an agreed upon solution. 1. Remember the future : anticipation & vision setting of a workable outcome 2. Prune the product tree 3. Speedboat or sailboat Estimation

The combination of complexity & uncertainty makes it more problematic for knowledge work projects than other projects. Following good practices for agile estimations have to be considered : WHY : necessary for sizing & approving projects (ROI, IRR) & to determine which work to include into a release or interation HOW & WHEN : are created as a range of uncertainty (ex +/- 30%) at the beginning of the project and refined during iterations (ex +/- 30% -> +/- 5%) WHO : all the team members need to be involved in the estimation process (WIDEBRAND DELPHI/PLANNING POKER) Estimation

• IDEAL TIME : this means asking team members to estimate as there were no interruptions. In an eight-hour day how much work can be done without interruptions. So ideal time is how long something would take when all peripheral work and distractions would be removed. Then we relate ideal time to effective time and integrate interruptions or other constraints.

Estimation

• Relative Sizing / Story Points : Noted that people are not good at predicting the absolute size of the work & the estimation process is difficult & certainly unpopular. People are much better at comparative measurements. If we know chunks of work already done we can compare new development by referencing the known entities. We give a relative score to the grade of difficulty & time of each work (Story Points/Item) and compile those story points per iteration. The idea is to get away from estimating in hours to give more tolerance & be more adaptive as new information becomes available. • Story Points : • Teams should own the Story points • Story Points estimates should be all inclusive, complexity, effort & risk • When disagreeing, the totals do not need to match • Size should be relative

Estimation

• The Fibonacci Sequence in estimations : • (0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,…) It is a naturally occurring sequence that shows up frequently in connection of how things get bigger and how random factors have an escalating effect. Estimation

• Affininty Estimating : is the process of grouping requirements into categories or collections. Estimation

Time & budget estimation (size/effort/cost) I. Determine size of project in story points or ideal days use wideband delphi to determine ideal time II. Calculate work : we do this by calculating the average of the teams’ availability in % and relate to ideal time (Marie 35%, Tom 47%, Gina 52% & ideal time = 50 days : 35+47+52/3=44,67 // 50/0,4467=111,93(112)) III. Convert the effort into a schedule by factoring size, resources & dependencies result of II is divided by the number of available resources factoring risks & dependencies between work items IV. Calculate costs by applying labor rates

Estimation

Agile Project Accounting Principles When we consider the costs of running knowledge worker projects labor cost often comprise a large portion of the expenses. Also cost associated are equipment, travel, licenses, special services,…. Respecting the type of cost allocation burdened or unburdened wages. We also need to consider the team members involvement (30%, 50%, 100%) in the project

If we have 10 story points on this project the price per story item will be $19350/10=$1935 So each new chartered item would cost $1935 + $19350 Estimation

Estimate Ranges Estimates should be presented in ranges to indicate our level of confidence in the estimates and to manage stakeholders expectations. Estimate ranges should narrow as we move into the project and information becomes available as confidence levels will grow.

Agile Plans

Agile plans varies from traditional planning in three key ways : 1. Trial & demonstration uncover true requirements, which then require replanning = Backlog reprioritization affects iteration & release 2. Agile planning is less of an upfront effort, instead is done throughout the project = Retrospectives generate changes to processes 3. Midcourse adjustments are the norm = Feedback generates chance requests Agile Plans

• Iteration & Release Planning : Project broken into releases & iterations Agile Plans

• Velocity & Release Planning : Feature prioritization & Speed of delivery Agile Plans

Agile Charters : One of the first documents to produce on a project, it describes GOAL, PURPOSE, COMPOSITION & APPROACH (W5H) and is derived from an initial planning process which integrates a BUSINESS CASE Agile Plans

Business Case : Business case in Agile projects is similar to traditional projects. Agile will however stress in the BC early benefits realization opportunities. Agile Plans

Business Case : necessary entries to the template PROJECT OVERVIEW ANTICIPATED COSTS ANTICIPATED BENEFITS BUSINESS MODEL & INDEXES ROI ASSUMPTIONS & RISKS SWOT/PEST : Strenght, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat; Political, Economic, Social, Technological RECOMMENDATIONS RISKS OF NOT UNDERTAKING THE PROJECT

Adaptative planning Test

• If a team has a velocity of 20 story points and there are 83 story points remaining in the backlog and excluding all other potential constraints like increased scope, how many iterations should it take for the project team to complete the remaining story points? • A. 6 • B. 3 • C. 5 • D. 4

Adaptative planning Test

• C - 83/20=4.15. Round 4.15 up to 5. 5 iterations is the best answer. [Agile Estimating and Planning. Mike Cohn.] [Planning, monitoring, and adapting]

Adaptative planning Test

• When a user story is estimated to be 0 story points, what does it indicate? • A- That the user story costs 0 points. • B- That the user story has no value. • C- That the user story is an impediment to progress. • D- That the user story takes minimal effort to design, build, and test. Adaptative planning Test

• D - A 0 point user story is said to be of minimal effort for a development team. [Agile Estimating and Planning. Mike Cohn.] [Planning, monitoring, and adapting] Adaptative planning Test

• In scrum a change report is used to document a change in scope. When is a change report typically created? • A- During release planning • B- Immediately after any scope change • C- After a sprint • D- During sprint planning Adaptative planning Test

• C - A change report is typically authored after a sprint has completed. [Agile Project Management with Scrum. Ken Schwaber.] [Planning, monitoring, and adapting] Adaptative planning Test

• What does WIP stand for? • A- Work in product • B- Work in production • C- Work in process • D- Work in places

• C - A lean manufacturing philosophy is to eliminate waste. One defined waste type in the lean philosophy is inventory, which is also referred to as work in process (WIP). WIP is material or parts that have started production but are not yet a finished or "done" product. Inventory is considered wasteful because it costs money to purchase, store, and maintain. One way of reducing inventory is to reduce the WIP at individual machines or servers by only moving as fast as your slowest machine or processor (the system bottleneck). Agile also strives to control its WIP through WIP limits by completing all features to a "done" state before beginning development of new features. One can think of an iteration or sprint as a process that can develop a certain amount of features. In this analogy, the WIP limit is equivalent to the sprint backlog. By maintaining a WIP limit equal to the sprint backlog, no features should be incomplete at the sprint review. [Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility. Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver, James R. Trott.] [Planning, monitoring, and adapting] Adaptative planning Test

• Greg is ready to select another task for execution in the current iteration. He reviews the task and realizes that the estimated time on the task card is most likely too low. What should Greg do? • A- Select a different user story • B- Remove the card from the task board and place it in the product backlog • C- Deal with the minor inconsistency in private and work overtime to keep the iteration on schedule • D- Update the time on the task card as soon as possible Adaptative planning Test

• D - Agile team members should feel free to update incorrect task time estimates as soon as possible. Team members can use current iteration progress and accrued experience to come to a new task time estimate. [Lean- Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility. Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver, James R. Trott.] [Planning, monitoring, and adapting] Adaptative planning Test

• What is one type of information radiator that a scrum master uses to track and monitor team progress? • A- RFID • B- Task board • C- Gantt chart • D- Work breakdown structure (WBS) Adaptative planning Test

• What is one type of information radiator that a scrum master uses to track and monitor team progress? • A- RFID • B- Task board • C- Gantt chart • D- Work breakdown structure (WBS)

• B - An agile team often uses a task board to monitor and control progress. A task board identifies tasks to be completed during an iteration and their progress. [Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility. Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver, James R. Trott.] [Planning, monitoring, and adapting] Adaptative planning Test

• What is the first step agile team's take during iteration planning? • A- Aggregating similar user stories into meta-stories. • B- Decomposing large or complex user stories into smaller, more manageable user stories. • C- Aggregating dissimilar user stories into meta-stories. • D- Refactoring testing code for the upcoming iteration

• B - During iteration planning, the team follows three steps to create an iteration backlog: 1) The team decomposes large or complex user stories into multiple, smaller stories, 2) The team breaks each user story into development tasks, and 3) The team estimates the task effort or duration, typically using ideal hours. [The Art of Agile Development. James Shore.] [Planning, monitoring, and adapting] Adaptative planning Test

• As a developer on the agile team, Greg is beginning development on a task. Greg is at the task board and must place the task card in the correct column of the task board to update everyone of its status. In which column should Greg place the task card? • A- To do • B- Ready for testing • C- Done • D- In progress

• D - Greg should place the task card in the 'in progress' column to signify that the task is currently being executed. [Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility. Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver, James R. Trott.] [Planning, monitoring, and adapting] Adaptative planning Test

• In general, how can story points and value points be considered? • A- Story points represent quality and value points represent value. • B- Story points represent cost and value points represent benefit. • C- Story points represent quality and value points represent benefit. • D- Story points represent story value and value points represent product value. Adaptative planning Test

• B - In general, story points can be considered as the cost of developing a user story, while value points can be considered as the benefit of developing a user story. [Agile Estimating and Planning. Mike Cohn.] [Planning, monitoring, and adapting]