Managing products with agility, forecasting and release planning

Question 1

What to do if you are drowning in technical debt?

Answer 1

1. Create a short measurable checklist that mirrors minimum releasable product (Definition of Done)
2. Stop adding new features and make your product meet that checklist and release your product
3. While you have an increment of working software (Sprint)
   - Work to create something of value (Increment)
   – Work towards a new goal while meeting the DOD (Sprint Goal)
   – Leave things better than you found them (Engineering Excellence)
   - Review that thing of value with your stakeholders (Sprint Review, Backlog Adaption)
   – Get feedback on at least one new thing for stakeholders
   – Update the Backlog to reflect this new information
   - Reflect on how you worked with your entire team (Sprint Retrospective, Kaizen)
   –Is quality increasing?
   –Is the DOD increasing?
   –What can we change to make things better?
   Go to #1

Question 2

How are all planning sessions collaborative in scrum?

Answer 2

The Daily Scrum is a collaborative planning session for the Development Team to inspect progress and adapt the plan to meet the Sprint Goal.

The Sprint Review is a collaborative session to gather input needed to help plan the next Sprint.

The Sprint Retrospective is a collaborative session to enable and plan for continuous improvement.

Question 3

Who owns the plans in scrum?

Answer 3

The people doing the work

Question 4

What is the essence of planning?

Answer 4

Inspect and adapt.

Question 5

How to reduce waste related to planning?

Answer 5

1. We minimize time spent analyzing things that may never happen.
2. We minimize time spent analyzing to an impossible level of accuracy
3. We incorporate meaningful feedback every time we plan.

Question 6

Why estimate?

Answer 6

Benefits:

• team knows its own velocity, knows how much will fit into the sprint
• when estimating, open issues are more likely to come to surface

Question 7

What is an estimation?

Answer 7

An estimate is simply a prediction based on known information and input at a given point in time.

Question 8

Which are the most important metrics?

Answer 8

“The most important metrics are: did we execute the way in which we said we would, and did we deliver the value to the business that we had promised?” - Jamie S. Miller

Question 9

How should product owner use estimates?

Answer 9

Let’s remind ourselves that, at its root, the only purpose of estimation is to allow a Development Team to figure out how much work it thinks it can take on. When those estimates are exposed beyond the team’s circle of trust we may indeed run the risk of abuse, of story points being commoditized, of teams being compared or obliged to bid for work using points as a cryptocurrency, and other abominations. In Scrum this is a risk which lies squarely with a Product Owner to manage. As a member of the Scrum Team, the Product Owner is trusted to understand and respect the Development Team’s estimates and to use any associated projections sensibly.