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Blood, Sweat & Tears: A True Life Journey into Holding a Large Scale Agile Planning Event

Presenters: Billie SchuttpelzPaul Pobursky

What You Are About to See

Planning Event Highlights

◎ 175 Global Participants, US and India

◎ 12 Agile Development Teams

◎ 5 Program Level Teams

◎ 5 Agile Coaches to Help Facilitate

◎ 3 Full Days

◎15 Events Last Year (Billie)

◎ 5 Events Last Year (Paul)

Agenda

◎Introductions

◎Blood – Getting Commitment

◎Sweat – Inputs to Event

◎Tears – The Event

◎Beers – Post Event

Billie SchuttpelzAgile Coach, SPC4, CPT, ICP-ACC

I am here because I’ve been a part of 15

of these Release Planning events, large

and small; both by the book and

customized; and I’d like to share my

learnings because we are all in this

together.

bschuttpelz@gmail.com

Paul PoburskyPMP, PMI-ACP, CSM

I am here because I want to share

from my real world successes and

failures! I will share what the books

don’t tell you!

paulpobursky@gmail.com

Purpose◎ Share Our Story

◎ Spur Thoughts

◎ Learn from Our Mistakes

Outcome◎ Know What to Avoid

◎ See and Hear Successful Events

◎ Real World (Reality)

Your Role◎ Hold Questions

◎ Exiting Early…Tell Us Why

◎ Think of what you’d like to ask us

What this Presentation is NOT!

◎NOT About Agile Transformation

◎NOT a Lift and Carry Guide

◎NOT an Industry Standard

What this Presentation Is

◎Based on SAFe Release Train Planning

◎Based on Our Own Personal Experience

What You Are About to See

Blood

Getting Full Commitment and Buy-In

◎ Build a Realistic Strategy

◎ Accelerate Time to Value

◎ Consolidate Planning Meetings

◎Work Out Dependencies

◎ Get all the Liars in the Same Room!

Why Release Planning?

Commitment & Buy-In

◎ Strong Leadership

◎ Partnership from Business

SweatWhat it’s going to take to put on an event!

Inputs

Establish Teams

◎Whole Teams○ Keep specialized teams at a minimum

◎ Feature Based Teams ○NOT Technical Based Teams

◎ Consistent Membership

Visions

Business

IT

Road Map

Definition of Ready for Features◎ Create DoR as a Team

◎ Used as a Barrier to Entry to Release Planning

Venue◎ Think Wedding planning!

Venue

◎ Prep the Day Before

◎Setup Everything!

Venue◎ This is why you setup early and map out

team locations and tables.

**Names and Faces Blurred to Protect the Innocent

Event Agenda

◎ Timing○ Buffers

○ Communicated

○ Committed

◎ Split Timezone○ Strategic Planning and Coordination

◎Room for Run Over

Event Agenda

Tears(of Joy)

The Event

Sample Run Through

Because of Time

Constraints a few

sections will be

covered quickly.

Opening◎Keep it short!○No more than 15 minutes

◎Keep it Simple!○ Few to No Slides

○ Focus on Highlights from past

◎Inspire and Charge the Room!○Themes, Videos, Quotes

◎Use this Time to Focus the Room

◎ This is where the Vision for architecture, new

architectural epics, common frameworks are

showcased

◎This is the Executive Briefing which will set the

tone for the Planning Session

◎Pitfalls○Too Long and Boring

○Not Relevant

○Not Prepared

IT Vision

Business Vision

Feature Board◎ Front and Center

◎ Grouped by Strategic Themes

◎ In Priority Order

Team Planning Requirements

◎Keep it short!○No more than 15 minutes

○Usually around 5 minutes

◎Focus on What the Teams Need to Do○Objectives / Risks / Issues

○Hard Dates?

○Holidays

○Dependency Board

○Check Point Schedule

◎ Use this Time to Focus the Room

Team Breakouts

◎ Longest Most Important Section of the Event!

Coaches/RTE

Product

Management

ArchitectureSME

PMO

Other Agenda Items(The Ones We Crossed Off Earlier)

We would love to cover these in great detail,

but wanted to keep focus on more important

items

◎ SoS / Check Points

◎ Draft Plan Review

◎ Program Review & Problem Solving

◎ Team Breakouts 2 of 2

Q&A(still a bit more to come)

“I’ve heard of a

program board…..how

is it used during the

event?”

Program Board

Program Board (After 1 day)

Program Board

Program Level Risks◎ Resolved, Owned, Accepted & Mitigated○ Covered as a Program

○ Scheduled Throughout Event

Final Plan Review

◎ Program Risks

◎ Impediments

◎ Program Board Dependencies

Confidence Vote

◎ Seek to Improve!

◎What Went Well?

◎What Can We Do Better?○ Voting

◎ Next Steps!○Make Progress

Event Retrospective

DONE!

Real World Results

◎ 5 Major Production Launches○ Previous Year 2

◎ IT and Business Change Requests Minimized○Less Scope Creep!!!

◎ Happy End Users

◎ Business Likes IT…○ Cultural Change

Presentation ROTI

“Excellent” – A useful presentation that was

worth more than the time spent.

“Average” – I Gained enough to justify the time

spent. Useful, but was not worth 100% of the

time I spent, so I lost time.

“Useless” - I Gained nothing. I lost 45 minutes

of my life I can never get back!

Beers!See You At the Post Event

Paul Poburskypaulpobursky@gmail.com

Billie Schuttpelzbschuttpelz@gmail.com

Blood, Sweat & Tears: A True Life

Journey into Holding a Large Scale Agile Planning Event

Appendix

SAMPLE

Definition of Ready for Features (before a PI)

The feature must contribute to the overall value of the sub-epic

1. The feature must have acceptance criteria that is measurable and identifies all

success and failure conditions

2. All known assumptions are listed in case this feature has dependencies.

3. The feature must be described on a system context diagram

4. The language of the feature must be in business language

5. The feature must scoped to the system defined by the system context diagram

6. Supporting artifacts are attached when possible and uses relevant business process

diagrams, UI mocks, etc.

7. The feature is considered a top priority feature for consideration for the PI

8. Product management team and architecture are in agreement that the feature

covers functional, architectural and business needs.

9. The feature is socialized with teams

Appendix

◎ Slide 8 – www.scaledagileframework.com

◎ Learn to do scaled Release Planning format

you’ve seen in this presentation through a Leading SAFe

training (http://www.scaledagile.com/leading-safe/).

◎ Schedules and upcoming dates for Michigan

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/leading-safe-40-scaled-

agilist-certification-tickets-24564959455?aff=es2