Day 5 Flashcards
What are the aspects of a benefits management plan?
Target benefits - Expected tangible and intangible business value to be
realized from the project.
Strategic alignment - How the benefits align with the organization’s business
strategies
Timeframe - When the benefits (short-term and long-term) will be realized, usually by project phase
Benefits owner - Person or group that monitors, records, and reports the
benefits
Metrics - Direct and indirect measurements of the realized benefits
Risks - Risks associated with achieving the targeted benefits
In Agile, what are Sprint Reviews/Demos?
✓At the end of each iteration or sprint, the team conducts a sprint review or
demo.
✓ In early stages, obtain the product owner’s acceptance of the story and
any feedback to enable the team to make changes to optimize business
value.
✓ Focus on completing whole user stories in each sprint.
✓ Verify that the capability is “potentially shippable”.
Sprint is 1-4 weeks, usually 2 weeks
What is release management?
In traditional projects, product release occurs at the end when everything is
complete.
However, in today’s complex business environment, where work is hardly
ever “done”, we need to factor change into our thinking about work.
Agile projects can convert highvalue capabilities into delivered
solutions early.
What are Disciplined Agile (DA) Approaches?
✓ Use DA approaches to support dynamic work environments.
✓ A Product Owner creates a minimum business increment (MBI) that defines work requirements to deliver the stated value.
✓ The MBI creates value quickly and incrementally, so the business can
start using and benefitting from it.
Advantages:
− Feature or capability assessment
− Improve organizational tolerance for change
− A time cadence for subsequent releases
How long does a sprint normally last?
Sprint are timeframes, between 1-4 weeks, usually 2 weeks
What is a Benefit Cost Analysis?
✓ Frequently used to compare potential projects to determine which one to
authorize.
✓ Select the alternative which demonstrates that benefits outweigh costs by the greatest amount.
✓ Alternative should not be chosen when costs exceed benefits.
✓ The accuracy of the estimates of cost and benefit determines the value of the benefit cost analysis.
What is the Present Value (PV) Calculation?
PV= FV/ (1+R)n
*Nth power
What is the Net Promoter Score (NPS)?
NPS is a metric used in customer experience programs to measure
customer loyalty.
Customers rate their experience with a number from -100 to +100. A higher score is desirable.
What is A/B testing?
Used in marketing, A/B testing is a method for determining user preferences.
Different sets of users are shown similar services; the difference is the independent variable.
Based on the results of the AB testing experiment, you can optimize the solution you provide to users.
What is the Monte Carlo Simulation?
Outputs are generated to represent the range of possible outcomes for the project.
Monte Carlo refers to not one single analysis method but to a wide class of techniques, mostly making use of sophisticated computers and inputs of random numbers, probabilities, and algorithms.
What they use in hurricane forcasting
How do you use Simulations?
✓Uses computer models and estimates of risks.
✓Translates uncertainties into potential impact.
✓Involves calculating multiple project durations, using varying sets of
assumptions.
How do you Use Decision Trees to Find Benefit and Value?
✓ Use to support selection of the best of several action options.
✓ Branches represent different decisions or events, each of which can have
associated costs and risks.
✓ The end-points of branches in the decision tree represent the outcome
from following that path, which can be negative or positive.
✓ Calculate the expected monetary value of each branch and select the optimal one.
What are some things to consider in the Internal Business Environment?
✓ Organizational changes can make a dramatic impact on the scope of a
project.
✓ The project manager and project sponsor need to have visibility into
business plans, reorganizations, process changes, and other internal activities.
✓ Because internal business changes might cause:
− Need for new deliverables
− Reprioritization or removal of existing deliverables
What are the aspects of the External Business Environment?
The PESTLE acronym identifies the external business environment factors
that can affect the value and desired outcomes of a project.
Others are:
✓ TECOP (technical, environmental, commercial, operational, political)
✓ VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity)
These frameworks can help you to better understand external factors that can introduce risk, uncertainty, or provide opportunities.
How do you Update Baselines in a project?
✓ In traditional project plans, the completed initial plan contains the
baseline.
✓ As changes occur in the project, you update the baseline to reflect any new
requirements.
✓ Agile projects process change continuously, in iterations or increments. Work is prioritized and updated in the product backlog or in the value stream (Disciplined Agile).
What is Backlog Reprioritization?
Product owner re-prioritizes the backlog as stories or requirements change.
Business value determines the priority of the changes.
What are some Recommended Options for Changes?
✓ When change is proposed, the product owner should focus on the intended business value of the change.
✓ Give the project team discretion to consider the change and identify
potential solution options.
A clear governance structure becomes critical when?
project changes are driven by changes in the internal or external business environments.
What is a Governance Steering Committee?
✓ ‘The Project Board’ or overall governance or steering committee that coordinates the project:
✓Might include: the project sponsor, a senior user, and PMO resources.
✓ Are responsible for: Clarifying the project charter and objectives; and allocating resources to the project.
How do you Assess the Impact on Project Backlog Based on Business Environment Changes?
- Understand the project’s organizational context.
- Understand the external factors that may impact your project.
- How is the project work prioritized?
- What is the project governance model?
What are some Organizational Cultures and Styles?
View of leadership, hierarchy and authority
Shared vision, beliefs & expectations
Risk tolerance
Regulations, policies and procedures
Code of conduct
Operating Environments
Motivation and reward systems
What are some aspects of Organizational Structures?
✓ Affect resource availability
✓ Affect how projects are conducted
✓ Main structures include functional, project-oriented, matrix, and composite.
What is a roll out plan?
✓ You need to plan for successful implementation of changes.
✓ Roll out plans enable you to define the knowledge transfer, training,
and readiness activities required to implement the change.
✓ Depending on the size, scope, and nature of the change, the plan
details might include:
– The Project team and the affected customer and users
– Training and support activities
What do you need to consider for Project Management Plan Updates?
Based on the scope of changes, you may need to update the project
management plan for:
✓ Scope
✓ Timelines
✓ Work packages
✓ Team member assignments
In agile projects, the team might remove lower-value deliverables from scope to make room for the change.
What is a training plan?
Changes to the project plan that will likely impact the training plan:
✓ Scope of the training and knowledge transfer required
✓ Roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders
✓ Timelines
What are training artifacts?
Changes to the plan and deliverable set requires changes to the training
artifacts, including:
✓ Training courseware
✓ Lab configurations and exercises
✓ Knowledge requirements and potentially credentials, if certification
of skills is expected
✓ Updates for the trainers to gain the necessary knowledge transfer required to deliver the updated training
Whether in-house or outsourced, you have to ensure these changes to training are made.
What are Demos?
✓ Changes to software solutions may require demonstration of changed
configurations, processes, workflows, and roles and responsibilities.
✓ Key customer and user stakeholders need to review the demo and provide
feedback to ensure the changes work as intended and do not impact the workflow of the solution.
✓ Early feedback allows for adaptation, while the feedback is immediately
relevant and should improve the quality of the change while reducing overall cost and risk.
How do you Recommend, Plan, and Facilitate Change?
- Establish a single change request method which includes:
− A description of the proposed change
− The business value of the change
− Any risk and risk mitigation recommendations
− Likely cost of the change - Ensure that a CCB can assess the change cost, risk, and value, other potential impacts to the project, and make recommendations.
- Check the project’s tolerance – can you can approve the change or do you need to escalate it to the governing board for review and approval?
- Follow organizational change management best practices:
− Build a compelling case for change
− Get buy-in and commitment of key stakeholders
− Communicate the change vision
− Enable other stakeholders to engage - Ensure changes are properly aligned and updates are made to relevant project artifacts – i.e. project plan, training plans, training artifacts, and software configurations or demos.
What is continuous improvement?
✓ Aim for small, incremental improvements or large breakthroughs.
✓ A business strategy that is developed at the organizational level for projects to adopt and use.
✓ Might be implemented by an organization’s PMO.
What is a culture of continuous improvement?
W. Edwards Deming’s philosophy of improving quality aims to reduce
expenses, increase productivity, and thus increase market share.
Be guided by these four concepts:
✓Better design of products to improve service.
✓Higher level of uniform product quality.
✓Improvement of product testing in the workplace and in research centers.
✓Greater sales through global markets.
What is Six Sigma?
respond to customer needs and improving processes by systematically
removing defects.
What is Kaizen?
✓ Many small changes or improvements.
✓ Small changes less likely to require major expenditures of capital.
✓ Ideas come from workers—not expensive research, consultants, or equipment.
✓ All employees should continually improve their own performance.
✓ All are encouraged to take ownership of their work to improve motivation.
What is PDCA?
Plan - Define objectives and processes
Do - Execute plan and collect data
Study (Check) - Evaluate data and compare results to expectations
Act - Identify issues and root causes, then modify to improve process
What are some Continuous Improvement Tools?
Lessons Learned Register is an important component of each project.
✓ Use it as a source of improving the processes in other projects.
✓ Avoid filing it away at the end of a project and not referring to it.
Retrospectives:
✓ Common in agile projects at the end of each iteration.
✓ Helps the team look back at an iteration and plan improvements for the next one.
Experiments provide a way to improve team efficiency and effectiveness:
✓ Some techniques include A/B testing and team feedback to identify improvements.
✓ Perform experiments one at a time to isolate the results.
What are some Update to Process and Standards?
✓ Lessons learned at the project level can apply to the organization’s continuous improvement process, in addition to the project management processes.
✓ Escalate these lessons and evaluate them for consideration at the organizational level.
How do you Execute Continuous Improvement Steps?
- Review the organization’s continuous improvement strategy.
- Develop a continuous improvement approach for your project, keeping in
mind the project goals and the expectations of the stakeholders. - Use lessons learned from your project and other projects—as sources of
continuous improvement. - For agile projects, use retrospectives to improve the next iteration.
- Use lessons learned at the project level to improve the organization’s
continuous improvement process.
What is the Agile Manifesto?
The Four Values of the Agile Manifesto
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others to do it.
Through this work we have come to value:
1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
4. Responding to change over following a plan
What are the THE 12 CLARIFYING PRINCIPLES?
- Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software
- Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s
competitive advantage. - Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
- Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
- Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
- The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-toface conversation.
- Working software is the primary measure of progress.
- Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developer, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
- Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
- Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of work not done – is essential.
- The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
- At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective., then tunes and adjust its behavior accordingly
What are AGILE METHODOLOGIES?
There are over a dozen agile methodologies
No single right way
Can be tailored once a team is experienced
Most common
* Scrum (really a framework)
* Disciplined Agile
* Extreme Programming (XP)
* Lean product development
* Kanban
* Feature-driven development (FDD)
* Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)
* Crystal
What is scrum?
- Framework rather than a methodology
- Scrum is one of many Agile approaches
- Can be applied to any industry
- Employs various techniques
- High-performing cross functional teams
- Iterative, incremental approach
- Iterations are known as “Sprints”
Where does the word scrum come from?
The term “Scrum” comes from rugby.
A scrum (short for scrummage) is a method of restarting play. The
players pack closely together with their heads down and attempt to
gain possession of the ball.
Where does the word scrum come from?
The term “Scrum” comes from rugby.
A scrum (short for scrummage) is a method of restarting play. The
players pack closely together with their heads down and attempt to
gain possession of the ball.
What are the THREE PILLARS OF EMPIRICISM?
- Transparency
- Inspection
- Adaptation
What is transparency in empiricism?
- Discuss product requirements
- Establish shared product vision
- Create a Definition of Done
What is inspection in empiricism?
- Assess productivity during Daily Scrum
- Burn-down chart
- Demonstrate product increment during Sprint Review
- Objective assessment based on Acceptance Criteria and Definition of Done
What is adaptation in empiricism?
- Welcome change
- React quickly to variance in order to meet Sprint goal
- Sprint Retrospective promotes continuous improvemen
What is the level of detail in a scrum?
Product vision
Product roadmap
Release Planning
Iteration Planning
Daily Planning
How do you create the product vision?
Interview stakeholders
Focus on how a product adds value
Motivates Developers
What is the product vision?
Why you’re building a product
Benefits of product
Who you’re building it for
Why you are positioned to develop it
Since scope is evolving it is important to share an understanding of what is being created
What is the Product Box – Collaboration Game?
Technique used to explain an overarching solution.
Stakeholders try to describe aspects of a solution in the same way a marketer might describe product features and benefits on a box.
Helps with understanding:
✓ Different types of users of a solution
✓ Their priorities and likes/dislikes
✓ Key aspects of a solution that drive the most critical value aspects
Who is the product owner?
- develops product vision
- serves as a voice of the stakeholders
- Collects requirements from stakeholders
- Determines value of features
- Prioritizes backlog items based on value
- Controls the budget
- Oversees return on investment
- Validates product quality
Who is a part of the scrum team?
Developers
Scrum Master
Product Owner
Who is the developer?
- Also known as the Development Team
- Self-organized
- Builds the product increments during each Sprint
- Estimates the work
- Decides what can be done during each Sprint
- Cross-functional
- Includes all skillsets such as “QA” or “Tester”
- Every necessary skillset is represented
Whi is the scrum master?
- Servant leader to Developers
- Ensures adherence to Scrum framework and roles
- Facilitates meetings
- Removes impediments (roadblocks, blockers)
- Serves as a buffer to prevent interruptions
- Provides essential tools and resources
- Coaches other team members
- Assists Product Owner with managing backlog
- Serves as Scrum “ambassador” to the organization
What is the XP Metaphor?
Metaphor is an Extreme Programming (XP) technique that describes a common vision of how a program works.
Metaphors should be simple and non-technical.
Enables the team to understand the overarching approach that is being taken to provide a capability or solve a problem.
What is the scrum framework?
Inputs from Executives, Team, Stakeholders, Customers, and Users
Developers select as many items as they can committo deliver by end of Sprint
Sprint end date and Team deliverable do not change
What is the Overview - Agile Ceremonies?
Scrum is an agile framework for developing and sustaining complex
products, with specific roles, events, and artifacts.
In a sprint planning meeting, the team collaborates to plan work for the current sprint.
A sprint is a timeboxed iteration in Scrum.
Hold daily standups—short (10-15 minute) daily meetings—for the team to
reaffirm commitment to objectives for the iteration, identify potential blockers, and coordinate the day’s work.
In a Sprint Review at the end of each iteration, the Product Owner and other
customer stakeholders review progress and receive feedback for that iteration.
A Scrum Master facilitates a Sprint Retrospective for the team to identify improvements. They review the team’s processes and practices and identify
ways to improve performance and collaboration.
What is time boxing?
- Each Scrum event has maximum time allotted (Ex: 2-week Sprint)
- User stories are estimated
- Planned into the iteration
- If it doesn’t fit it has to wait
- Tool for completing work
What are user stories?
Short, simple descriptions of a feature
Told from the user’s perspective
When large or complex, can be called “epics”
Sentence structure:
“As a role, I want functionality, so that business benefit.”
Example:
“As a customer, I want my credit card information to be stored, so that I save time when checking out.”
How do you format user stories?
INVEST criteria
* Independent
* Negotiable
* Valuable
* Estimable
* Small
* Testable
What are some other things to keep in mind with user stories?
✓ Help teams focus on that value provided to the user.
✓ Suggest who will benefit from the work and how.
✓ Driven by description instead of technical specifications to give holistic view
What are Features and Epics?
✓ Usually described as a short phrase. This term groups related functionality together to deliver business value.
✓ Includes activities and efforts such as documentation, bug fixes, testing, and quality/defect repairs.
✓ Delivers the capability that can be estimated, tracked, and managed as a set.
✓ Epics are responsible for producing a major deliverable, which may include various Agile features, for example.
How do you work with features?
✓ Scheduling aligned to features ensures associated work is coordinated.
✓ Estimating features offers visibility to when blocks of functionality can be
released to the business and end users.
✓ Progress can be measured by drawing a ratio of accepted to remaining
features.
What is a PRODUCT BACKLOG?
- Prioritized list of everything that is needed in the product
- All work should be included
- Bug fixes
- Security features
- Changes
- Single source of product requirements
- Always changing
- Items are added, dropped, and reprioritized based on value
- The product is built incrementally based on work selected from the backlog
What are some Prioritization Techniques to Determine Objectives?
Use appropriate methods to learn the order of work that needs to be done.
These can include:
✓ Review product backlog
✓ Kano Model
✓ MoSCoW (MSCW) Analysis
✓ Paired Comparison Analysis
✓ 100 Points Method
What is product increment?
- The result of the latest sprint
- Demo during sprint review
- Must meet the “definition of done” established during planning
- Incomplete work is not demonstrated
What are small releases?
Demonstrates progress
Increases visibility to the customer
Smaller increments means rapid deployments
Who is regarded as the father of the continuous improvement
movement?
Deming
The methodology used to systematically test possible
solutions, assess the results, and implement those that work is
known as which of the following?
Plan Do Study Act
What is the aim of a retrospective?
To identify what went well and what can be improved.
How do you go about decomposing the work?
- Decompose the work for no more than 2 Sprints
- The Developers will decide how to approach the work
- User stories with uncertainty may not be decomposed into tasks right away
What are project backlogs?
✓ Change throughout the project.
✓ Groom and refine the product backlog continually; weekly or monthly intervals are typical.
✓ Remove product backlog items (PBIs) as work is completed.
- Edit and clarify PBIs as more becomes known or as product requirements change.
- Add PBIs when more work must be done.
A product backlog is a list of the expected work to deliver the product.
What is an iteration backlog?
✓ Teams must estimate effort and understand business priorities.
Iteration backlogs include items from the product backlog that can
conceivably be completed within the time period based on the team’s capacity
What are AGILE ESTIMATING TECHNIQUES?
- Relative estimation
- Arbitrary measure
- Usually used by scrum teams
- Express effort required to implement a story
- 3 items taken into consideration: level of complexity, level of unknowns, effort to implement.
What is relative sizing?
Quick and easy technique
Absolute value not considered T-shirt sizing
Similar to Fibonacci * Sizes instead of numbers
What is the agile estimating technique?
- Alternative to story points
- Units of time rather than arbitrary measure
- How long to build, test, and release functionality with ideal conditions
What are factors in estimating?
Volume of work
How much effort?
Uncertainty
How risky is the work?
Complexity
How complex is the work?
What are story points?
Relative sizing
* We aren’t good at absolute estimate
* We are better at relative estimates
Not tied to days, hours, or dates
* Removes pressure or emotion
Based on quantity of work, not speed Unique to a team
* Not comparable to the work of other teams
* Removes competition between teams
Reference for future estimates
Reserves and buffers are not necessary
While story points is the most commonly used metric, teams may choose any unit to represent work
What do you do in PLANNING POKER?
- Uses Fibonacci sequence
- Each player receives a deck of cards
- Facilitator reads a user story
- On the count of 3, everyone shows their estimate
- Purpose is to build consensus
- Close to consensus, move on and round to higher number
- Scattered estimates, discuss and estimate again
- Estimates are approximates
What are the two estimation techniques?
Planning poker estimates effort or relative size of development
effort. Use a deck of cards with modified Fibonacci numbers to
vote on user stories. Also called Scrum poker.
Story Pointing Use a relative measure e.g. numbers in the Fibonacci
sequence—for the level of difficulty or complexity of a feature. Individuals assign story points.
What is team velocity?
Velocity:
* Actual amount of development work completed per a certain amount of time or time-box
* Usually measured using a sprint as the time-box
* Used to estimate how quickly a certain amount of work can be completed
* Expressed as points (typically)
* Useful for forecasting
Use historical velocity data and take an average
If first time:
* Historical value from other projects
* Run a few iterations for a baseline
What is the difference between velocity and capacity?
Velocity is based on story points achieved historically
Capacity is based on team’s availability to do the work
What are T-Shaped Skills?
Agile teams invest in becoming more cross-functional.
Leveraging all team members to help accomplish the team goals improves:
✓ The team’s efficiency
✓ The likelihood of achieving objectives
What is a daily stand-up?
✓ Conducted at a designated time (in the team “ground rules”).
✓ Mandatory attendance of everyone in the Sprint.
✓ During the meeting, answer:
− What’s been done since the last meeting?
− What needs to be done before the next meeting?
− What does anyone need help with?
What is a daily scrum?
“What did I do yesterday?”
“What will I do today?”
“What are my roadblocks?”
- The Daily Scrum is held at the same time and same place each day
- The routine keeps things simple
- Although it is also known as the “Daily Standup”, team members are not required to stand
- Inspect and adapt Sprint backlog
- Identify progress and remaining work against the Sprint goal
- Typically 15 minutes or less
- Reserve off-topic subjects for a separate discussion
- Developers own this event
- Scrum Master and Product Owner presence is helpful but not required
What is the scrum master role during the daily scrum?
- Promotes Scrum best practices
- Stick to the time box
- Team values
- Removes impediments
- Coaches the team
- Problem solving
- Roles and responsibilities
- Serve as a buffer for the team
- Attendance not required
What is the product owners role during the daily scrum?
- Explains the value of each backlog item
- Must be easily accessible
- Answer questions
- Provide clarification
- Seek additional clarification from stakeholders
- Last minute reprioritization
- May cancel a Sprint
- Attendance not required
What is the developers role during the daily scrum?
- Lead the conversation
- Answer three questions
- What did I do yesterday?
- What do I plan to do today?
- Do I have any blockers?
- Inspect daily progress against the Sprint goal
- Ask clarifying questions about the user stories
What do you need to consider about self-organized and self-managing?
- Developers decide how they will be organized
- The Developers play a strong role in the selection of new team members
- This is also true for multiple teams working together
- Self-organization benefits:
- Personal accountability
- Commitment
- Innovation and creativity
What is the sprint backlog?
- Belongs to the Developers
- Subset of the product backlog
- Used to achieve the goal for the current Sprint
- Highly detailed and visible
- The Developers decide how to approach and select the work
- Developers hold themselves and each other accountable
- Although tasks are divided, each Sprint backlog item is owned by the entire group
- May need to be renegotiated with Product Owner in order to meet the Sprint Goal
What is a Burn Chart in Performance Tracking?
Burndown and burnup charts
“Information Radiators”
* Generic term for a highly visible information display
* Graphs, charts, data dashboard
* Communication tool
* Shows remaining work for the Sprint
* Trend line shows the running average, and what will likely happen if progress continues at this rate
What is a task board?
✓ Visualize work and enable the team and stakeholders to track progress as
work is performed.
✓ Promote visibility and maximize efficiency and accountability.
✓ Examples: Kanban boards, to-do lists, procedure checklists, and Scrum
boards.
What is a cross-functional development team?
- There is a balance of skills among the developers
- Every necessary skill and competency is represented
- “Developer” is a generic term. It includes every person who contributes to the “Done” product increment
- Borrowing team members can be disruptive
- Teams are organized around the project
- Team members may change
- Consider the impact on productivity
- More of an exception
What is the sprint review?
- Occurs at the end of a Sprint
- Participants
- Developers
- Scrum Master
- Product Owner
- Stakeholders (invited by Product Owner)
- Developers demos the product to product owner and possibly stakeholders
- Scrum Team and stakeholders inspect deliverables
- Elicit feedback and foster collaboration
- Team and product owner adapt product backlog if necessary
- Typically 1 hour per week of Sprint
What is the product owners role during a spring review?
- Presents the product backlog
- Explains progress
- What was completed
- Planned items that were not done
- Lead discussion of what to work on next
What is the developers role during a spring review?
- Demonstrates new product increment
- Answers questions about the product
- Discuss challenges
What is the scrum masters role during a spring review?
- Facilitates the event
- Promotes adherence to the time box
- Clarify roles and responsibilities
What is the stakeholders role during a spring review?
- Invited by Product Owner
- Try the new product increment
- Provide feedback
What are some Tools and Techniques for Verifying Scope?
Definition of Done - Checklist of required criteria for a deliverable to be considered ready for customer use.
Definition of Ready - Checklist for a user-centric requirement with all required information to begin work.
Acceptance Criteria - A set of conditions to meet before acceptance of deliverables.
Iteration Reviews - Interval at or near the conclusion of a timeboxed iteration when the project team shares and demonstrates the work produced during the iteration with stakeholders.
Variance Analysis - A technique for determining the cause and degree of difference between the baseline and actual performance.
Trend Analysis - An analytical technique that uses mathematical models to forecast future outcomes based on historical results.
What is product increment?
- The result of the latest Sprint
- Demo during Sprint Review
- Must meet the “Definition of Done” established during planning
How does the product scope evolve?
With each release, the product becomes more robust
What is sprint review?
- Informal gathering
- Elicit feedback
- Does it solve a problem?
- Does it serve a purpose?
- Is it user friendly?
What is “POTENTIALLY” RELEASABLE PRODUCT INCREMENT?
Complete
Acceptance Criteria
Definition of Done
Tested
Avoid escaped defects
Deliverable Now
No remaining work, including user instructions, etc.
Reasons the Product Owner might delay release
Costs associated with release
* Marketing expenses
* Additional customer support
* Customer’s willingness to adapt
* Inadequate Definition of Done
What do you need to consider when caceling a sprint?
Only the Product Owner can make the decision
* Sprint goal becomes obsolete
* New constraint in the project environment
* Decision is based on value
* Something else is more urgent
Done Work
* Determine if there is enough for a Sprint Review
Work in Progress (WIP)
* Re-estimate incomplete work and return it to the product backlog
What do you need to consider with sprint cadence?
Maintain consistency
* Cadence is like a regular heartbeat
* Sprint durations should be equal
* Sprints shouldn’t exceed one month
* Determines frequency of stakeholder interaction
Considerations for a canceled Sprint
* Changing the cadence can disrupt the rhythm
* Shorten the Sprint by moving up the Sprint Review (if any) and the Retrospective
* Easier with shorter Sprints
* Product Owner will decide how cancelation impacts the cadence
What are the aspects of a sprint retrospective?
Participants
* The Scrum Team
o Developers
o Scrum Master
o Product Owner
Evaluate the last Sprint
* People
* Processes
* Tools
Plan improvements for next iteration
Examples:
Do we need to change our Definition of Done?
Are we communicating well?
Do we need to build any of our skills?
Typically .75 hours per week of Sprint
What is the scrum masters role in the retrospective?
- Promotes Scrum best practices
➢ Stick to the time box
➢ Reminder of team values - Facilitates the meeting
- Introduces team-building exercises
- Guides problem solving and goal setting
- Participates in the discussion
- Commits to continuous improvements
What is the product owners role in the retrospective?
- Attends as a member of the Scrum Team
- Participates in the discussion
- Commits to continuous improvements
What is the developers role in the retrospective?
- Attend as a members of the Scrum Team
- Participates in the discussion
- Commits to continuous improvements
What is a retrospective?
✓ A regular check on the effectiveness of quality processes
✓ Look for the root cause of issues then suggest trials of new approaches to improve quality.
✓ Evaluate any trial processes to determine if they are working and should be continued, need adjusting or discontinued.
What does backlog refinement mean?
New features can be inserted into the priority list any time
* Not a Scrum meeting
* Product owner decides priority
* Constantly changes based on customer needs, new learning, and value
What do you when assessing the product backlog?
✓ Work to be done is also called a product backlog.
✓ Use backlog assessments and refinements to explore alternatives to overcome or avoid risks, such as removing work items or blockages
What are the steps when you Assess Product Backlog?
Continually assess the backlog for potential impediments, obstacles, and
blockers.
Evaluate impediments against pending work.
Also assess scheduled activities and other lists of work items.
The team and business stakeholders must assess the work backlog work in terms of value and priority.
What is the product roadmap?
- Story map with timing of deliverables
- Considers priorities against Developers velocity
- Subject to change as backlog is refined
- With each release the product becomes more obust
What are the aspects of a product roadmap?
✓ Vary in appearance and presentation.
✓ Display the strategy and direction of the product and the value it will
deliver.
✓ Lead with the overarching vision of the product.
✓ Are progressively elaborated over time with information and work
inputs and refinement of vision.
✓ Use themes (goals) to provide structure and associations.
✓ Provide short-term and long-term visualization of the product
What is agile release planning?
✓ High-level summary timeline of the release schedule based on product
roadmap and vision for the product’s evolution.
✓ Determines the number of iterations or sprints in the release
✓ Allows product owner and team to decide: − how much needs to be developed − how long it will take to have a releasable product based on
business goals, dependencies, and impediments.
What is Incremental Delivery?
✓ Enables value delivery sooner.
✓ Get higher customer value and increased market share.
✓ Allows partial delivery (or previews) to customers.
✓ Enables early feedback for the project team allowing for adjustments to the direction, priorities, and quality of the product
What is the MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT?
- Customer Journey
- Story Map
- End-to-end functionality
- Example: video streaming service
What are the aspects of Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?
- Allows all stakeholders to see and experience project outcomes.
- Channel feedback and idea generation
- Seeing results quickly provides inspiration to the team and models urgency.
What is the Minimum Business Increment (MBI)?
MBI is more viable when an MVP might disrupt the users and business, especially when a basic preliminary product, to gauge interest, is not necessary.
How do you optimize the use of MBIs?
✓ Ensuring the product and functions are understood.
✓ Pinpointing an incremental value increase.
What are the advantages of Minimum Business Increment (MBI)?
✓ Enable project team to deliver value sooner.
✓ Help team validate improvements.
✓ Enables team to incrementally build on success or pivot as needed.
What are the benefits of Cycles and Timeboxes?
✓ Timeboxes allow for better telemetry over time.
✓ Timeboxes create a sense of urgency.
✓ Cycling the project through similar timeboxes provides progress measurements from one timebox to the next.
✓ Teams gain more predictable measurements that can communicate expectations of cycle times, throughput, and velocity.
✓ Organize work into release cycles and working time blocks.
What is Iterative Scheduling with Backlog?
Delivers business value early and incrementally
Allows changes during entire project
Does not work well with projects featuring complex dependency relationships
What are some aspects of Iterative Scheduling with a Backlog Process?
✓ Use progressive elaboration (rolling wave) to schedule activities
✓ Use a specific time window e.g. two weeks
✓ Define requirements in user stories
✓ Prioritize stories
✓ Select based on priority and time box
✓ Add remaining stories to backlog
✓ Construct later based on their priority
What is On-Demanding Scheduling?
✓ Does not use traditional schedules
✓ Team members “pull” work from a queue when available
✓ Based on Kanban and Lean methodologies
✓ Provides incremental business value
✓ Levels out work of team members
✓ Works best when activities can be divided into equal amounts
✓ Does not work well with projects comprised of complex dependency
relationships
What are Project Artifact Examples?
Artifacts unique to agile projects:
✓ Product Backlog
✓ Product Increment
✓ Product Roadmap
✓ Product Vision Statement
✓ Release Plan
✓ Sprint Backlo
What are the Performance Report Types?
Information Radiators
Burndown Chart
Burnup Chart
Earned Value Management Reports
Variance Analysis Reports
Work Performance Reports
Quality Reports
Dashboards
Task Boards
When are Agile Retrospectives held?
held as necessary throughout the project
When are lessons learned in agile?
at the end of projects
What are Retrospectives and Lessons Learned in an agile project?
✓ Gather data on improvements and recognize successes.
✓ Review what went well and what could have been better.
✓ Involve everyone and respect their input.
✓ Avoid the blame game and focus on learning and growth opportunities
How do you Implement Results of Retrospectives/Lessons Learned?
✓ Rank the opportunities by importance and urgency.
✓ Incorporate tasks necessary to realize the improvements.
✓ Apply ideas to the team environment.
What are some considerations with you Conduct a Retrospective?
- Prepare some ideas or areas of focus in case the team needs inspiration or ideas.
- Make two columns on a board: “What Went Well” and “What Could Be Improved”.
- Ask attendees to identify items that went well in the iteration and add them to the first column.
- Ask them to identify items that could be improved and add them to the second list.
- Allow each participant to identify the reason for the improvement.
- Moderate a conversation about common items that need improvement and mark those.
- Narrow the list down to a few areas for improvement that will bring value in the next Sprint.
- Get team consensus on the plan improvement.
- Update these tasks to the Product Backlog after a discussion with the Product Owner.
- Implement changes.
Every timeboxed iteration in the project has a demo scheduled at the end, during the iteration review session. What is the goal of this demo?
To solicit feedback from the product owner and other
stakeholders.
Which of the following is not a benefit of planning for a minimum viable product?
Project team disbands early
What is the ideal spot for an information radiator?
In a high-traffic area.
