continuous agile planning that the biz and dev folk can "like like"

Continuous Agile Planning That the Biz and Dev Folk can “Like Like”

Matt Roberts , VP Product Development @Socialware [email protected] | @MulticastMatt

linkedin.com/in/cpgmattr

Abstract:

Many product development teams struggle through “painful” planning meetings. No one seems to enjoy them but they are deemed necessary for various reasons that all start off with good intentions and critical needs. They typically do not harness the power of being responsive to change and following YAGNI and delaying decision until the last responsible moment (i.e. more waste than the Austin Community Landfill).

In this talk, Matt will provide an approach that he’s used for years to strike the delicate balance of building a product and development roadmap that can be used for long-term planning, medium-term planning, and being extremely responsive to change. It’s also respectful of the Agile Manifesto Principles and Values. This approach should make planning an easier, if not fun, for everyone from Developers to Product Managers to Executives.

Planning - Biz Perspective“I can’t get those guys to commit to anything”

“Why can’t they just agree and move on?”

“Why do we need to have all these meetings?”

“We already have a date and scope, why bother?”

Planning - Dev Perspective“Planning sucks. Estimating sucks” “You hired me to write software, right?” “Yesterday, I spent the day in meetings, today, I’m going to spend the day in meetings. No blockers”

“We already have a date and scope, why bother?”

“Why do we need to have all these meetings?”

“As a developer I want to pad my estimates excessively so when the requirements change, I won’t have to stay up all night”

“Responding to change over following a plan”

“Welcome changing requirements, even late in

development. Agile processes harness change for

the customer's competitive advantage.”

“Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount

of work not done--is essential.”

The GoalDeliver the highest quality value to the customer while maintaining worker safety. This is accomplished by harnessing ongoing change through continuous:

Learning Planning Alignment Risk Reduction / Options

Planning is the Gateway Drug to Estimating

What

Who / Cost

When?!?!?!

Copyright 2003 Advanced Development Methods

WASTE

How do we achieve the goal?

Long-Term Planning in Product Development

Product Roadmap

Product Portfolio Strategy

“Long” Releases

Funding (Start-up, New Line of Business, etc.)

Build vs. buy

More?

Medium-Term Planning in Product Development

Sprint Planning

Small Release Planning

Continuous Flow Backlog Prioritization

Tasking out User Stories

Short-Term Planning in Product Development

Daily Stand-up

P1 Issues / Critical Situations

Pair Programming

Unit Tests

Coding

Research Spikes

XP Planning

Scrum Planning

The Way it Was Envisioned (unfortunately generally not

practiced)

Copyright 2003 Advanced Development Methods

Agile Planning Flame

Kanban “Planning”

No formal release planning process as the focus is on continuous release, but it can be done if needed (e.g. Scrumban)

Measure “Lead Time” to determine the average time for a piece of work to flow through the system Cumulative flow identifies waste

Continuous Capacity Planning

Problem:

Getting ready for another six months of drawn-out planning for a period to cover a fiscal year that starts at the end of the six months of planning, I was looking for a better way to serve the needs of the business and the development team.

Solution:

Continuous Capacity Planning - A New Hope

Capacity Allocation in Kanban

Capacity PlanningClassify work in terms of:

Product - User Facing: Themes, Epics, User Stories, Research Spikes, Innovation

Inter-departmental - Support, Service, IT

Internal: Infrastructure (SaaS), DevTools, Technical Debt, Defects, Research Spikes

Measure all work - historical data from tracking software works great

Involve a small (as responsible) set of the product development team

Establish baseline plan with fixed capacities then adjust to meet the needs of the customers and team!

Continuous Capacity Planning

Tag all new work coming into the product development system in terms of allocations type.

Periodically check that capacity allocations are being maintained and update release plans, project plans, and product roadmaps.

Allow the business to prioritize all work within capacity buckets that has not yet started, but try to stick to allocations. If allocations need to change, be explicit.

More can be done in the same time quickly through elimination of waste or eventually with additional capacity.

Agile Planning Flame

Continuous CapacityPlanning

Continuous Capacity Planning Example

Predict-IT is an Austin-based software company, delivering the most innovative value to customers operating large-scale data centers.

They are planning a Q3 release to capture a specific market window, but don’t want to spend the time on a big up front planning exercise as everyone wants to get started.

However, executives and product management need to understand what, who, and when, but want to be responsive to change.

The example is about planning, not the choices that were made throughout the project (find improvements!)

The “Feedback Cycle” approach could be for Scrum or Kanban/Continuous Flow Systems. Assume that these are periodic investment checks for longer-term planning.

Predict-IT Roadmap (v1)Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2

Capa

city

Plann

erCIO

IT

Direc

tor

Help

Desk

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Acco

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Lega

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“On The Go Capacity Planner”

Mobile Use Cases

Advanced Virtualization Platforms Support for Amazon VPC, Azure, Rackspace

Visible Infrastructure UI Viz. of Public and Private Cloud

Integrated Dashboard Cost, SAL, Exceptions All in One User

Experience

Situational Awareness

Configurable Notifications

Situational Awareness On-The-Go Notifications across all mobile platforms with

configurable escalation paths

Fast Troubleshooting All tickets have env. info

Third-Party Knowledge Base Integration into rich KB of possible fixes

integrated into response system

Regulatory Compliance Rules importable into predictive rules

engine for workload assignment

Release Planning“On The Go Capacity Planner”

25%

Visible Infra. 20%

Sit. Aware-ness 10%

SaaS Inf. 15%

Tech. Debt/Retro 20%

Support 10%

I II III IV V VI

Predict-IT Roadmap (v1)Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2

Capa

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I II III IV V VI

Feedback Cycle Plan I - Hypothesis“On The Go Capacity Planner”

25%

Visible Infra. 20%

Sit. Aware-ness 10%

SaaS Inf. 15%


Support 10%

I

User Story

User Story

User Story

Defect

Retro

Spike

Spike

Support

“On The Go Capacity Planner” Sum of Capacity (Story Points or #Items) = 30%

Visible Infra. Sum of Capacity (Story Points or #Items) = 15%

Sit. Awareness Sum of Capacity (Story Points or #Items) = 10%

SaaS Inf Sum of Capacity (Story Points or #Items) = 15%

Tech. Debt/Retro Sum of Capacity (Story Points or #Items) = 20%

Support Sum of Capacity (Story Points or #Items) = 10

All Bets Down!

Feedback Cycle Plan I - Result“On The Go Capacity Planner”

25%

Visible Infra. 20%

Sit. Aware-ness 10%

SaaS Inf. 15%


Support 10%

I

User Story

User Story

User Story

Defect

Retro

Spike

Spike

Support


10% Under


15% Under


10% Under


35% Over


At Plan

Done

Done

Support Sum of Capacity (Story Points or #Items) = 10%

Predict-IT RoadmapQ3 Q4 Q1 Q2

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I II III IV V VI

Risk - Didn’t Get Started

Risk - Didn’t Get Started

Feedback Cycle Plan II - Hypothesis“On The Go Capacity Planner”

20%

Visible Infra. 20%

Sit. Aware-ness 10%

SaaS Inf. 15%


Support 10%

II

Defect

Spike

Support







User Story

User Story

Spike

User Story

Defect

All Bets Down!

Feedback Cycle Plan II - Result“On The Go Capacity Planner”

20%

Visible Infra. 20%

Sit. Aware-ness 10%

SaaS Inf. 15%


Support 10%

II

Defect

Spike

Support




10% Under


10% Over



User Story

User Story

Spike

User Story

Defect

Done

Done


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I II III IV V VI

Ready to Release!

New Feature Will Increase Sales 50%!

“Fix SaaS Security Leak!”

Risk - Not Really Started

Feedback Cycle Plan III - HypothesisVisible Infra. 30%

Sit. Aware-ness 10%

SaaS Inf. 30%


Support 10%

III

Defect

Support






Defect

User Story

Defect

User Story

User Story

User Story

Retro

All Bets Down!

Feedback Cycle Plan III - ResultVisible Infra. 30%

Sit. Aware-ness 10%

SaaS Inf. 30%


Support 10%

III

Defect

Support



10% Under


5% Under


5% Over

Support Sum of Capacity = 20% (10% Over)

Defect

User Story

Defect

User Story

User Story

User Story

Retro

Done

Done


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Mobile Use Cases




Experience










I II III IV V VI

Done

New Feature Will Increase Sales 50%!

Risk - No Progress


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Situational Awareness Configurable Notifications








I II III IV V VI

Done

New Feature Will Increase Sales 50%!Do MVP Only for Q3

Remaining in Q4

Feedback Cycle Plan IV - HypothesisVisible Infra. 30%

Sit. Aware-ness 15%

SaaS Inf. 30%


Support 5%

IV

Defect

Support






User Story

Defect

User Story

User Story

User Story

Retro

Defect

All Bets Down!

Feedback Cycle Plan IV - ResultVisible Infra. 30%

Sit. Aware-ness 15%

SaaS Inf. 30%


Support 5%

IV

Defect

Support





Support Sum of Capacity = 0% (5% Under)

User Story

Defect

User Story

User Story

User Story

Retro

Defect Do

ne Do

ne


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I II III IV V VI

Done

New Feature Will Increase Sales 50%!Do MVP Only for Q3

Remaining in Q4

“Solve Cust. Crit-Sit at all

costs!!!!”

Feedback Cycle Plan V - Hypothesis

Visible Infra. 40%

Sit. Aware-ness 15%

SaaS Inf. 10%


Support 15%

VSupport





Support Sum of Capacity = 15%

Defect

User Story

User Story

User Story

Retro

Story

User Story

Story

All Bets Down!

Feedback Cycle Plan V - Result

Visible Infra. 40%

Sit. Aware-ness 15%

SaaS Inf. 10%


Support 15%

VSupport



15% Under


10% Under


20% Under

Support Sum of Capacity = 60% (45% Over)

Defect

User Story

User Story

User Story

Retro

Story

User Story

Story

Done

Done


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Mobile Use Cases




Experience


Situational Awareness On-The-Go Notifications across all mobile platforms

with configurable escalation paths






I II III IV V VI

Done

Done

Pull from release


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I II III IV V VI

Done

Done

“Quality Release!”

Feedback Cycle Plan VI - Hypothesis

SaaS Inf. 50%


Support 25%

V




User Story

Defect

Defect

Support

Defect

Retro

User Story

Retro

All Bets Down!

Feedback Cycle Plan VI - Result

SaaS Inf. 50%


Support 25%

V


20% Under



User Story

Defect

Defect

Support

Defect

Retro

User Story

Retro

Done

Done

NEW - All Hand’s

Sales Demo 20%


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I II III IV V VI

Done

Done, GOT THE DEAL!

NICE JOB ALL! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Continuous Capacity Planning - Dev Perspective

Continuous Capacity Planning is “like-liked” by Developers because:

Detailed external estimation is unnecessary for long-term and short-term planning.

The team has greater levels of autonomy based on the feedback cycle plan coupled with the release goals.

There is less of a focus on accountability, and more on alignment and prioritized goal achievement.

They do not bear the burden of change, indeed, everyone is continuously learning and adapting together.

There is more visibility across the organization of the real current state.

Continuous Capacity Planning - Biz Perspective

Continuous Capacity Planning is “like-liked” by Biz folk because:

When the business needs to adapt to change, there is little lost in terms of detailed long-term planning.

As there is no need for detailed long-term planning, the business can respond quickly to a rapidly changing environment.

The business can tweak the dials continuously, as long as work has not begun, and as long as it doesn’t violate agile principles and values.

There is much more of a focus on real goals as opposed to achievement of a plan (which means more value is generated for customers).

Long-term planning is a relatively easy exercise and the team isn’t afraid of engaging in what-if scenarios.

Haters Gonna Hate“All you’re doing is following a budgeting process!”

“This will never work with MBOs and stretch goals!”

“Wait, so the team can just choose to not live up to their commitments and push work? Now nothing is going to get done!”

“How can I hold teams and individuals accountable?”

Short-Term Planning

Culture of Fear

Absolute Requirement for Long-Term, Detailed Plans “Backed By” Detailed Estimates

Commitment to a Fixed Time, Scope, and Cost

Violation of Agile Principles and Values

Continuous Capacity Planning #Fail

Continuous Capacity Planning - #WINNING

Fast / Low-Effort Long-Term and What-If Planning

Fast / Low-Effort Medium-Term Planning

Culture of Continuous Learning / Continuous Improvement

Environment where “the business/customer” can work honestly and directly with “the developers”

Culture Embraces Agile Principles and Values

-Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

“No plan survives contact with the enemy”

- Dwight D. Eisenhower“Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”

- Kert Peterson“Agile is the Art of the Possible”

- Kert Peterson“Agile is the Art of the Possible”

Matt Roberts VP Product Development @Socialware

[email protected] | @MulticastMatt

linkedin.com/in/cpgmattr

Hope you “Like Liked” It!

continuous agile planning that the biz and dev folk can "like like"

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