Slide Deck 5 - Prioritization and Planning

Question 1

How does iteration planning differ from release planning?

Answer 1

Iteration planning is a more focused view while release planning is a high-level view of what has to be built

Question 2

Should tasks be allocated during the iteration planning process?

Answer 2

No, people sign up for one or two tasks once the iteration begins

Question 3

What are the steps in velocity-driven iteration planning?

Answer 3

1. Adjust priorities
2. Determine target velocity
3. Identify iteration goal
4. Select user stories
5. Split user stories into tasks
6. Estimate tasks

Step 1 and 2 can be swapped in order

Question 4

What should be the target velocity iteration over the iteration?

Answer 4

Ideally, the Velocity in the next iteration should equal the Velocity in the most recent iteration

• You could reset the velocity to the moving average from previously completed iterations

Question 5

Who selects the user stories in iteration planning?

Answer 5

Product Owner & Team

Question 6

How should we estimate the time of a task?

Answer 6

Use the ideal time, not the elapsed (actual) time

Question 7

What are some reasons why task estimates should be done by the group?

Answer 7

1. Tasks are not assigned to specific team members during iteration planning
2. The task will be assigned to one person, but others are still able to contribute about scope of work, experience, and knowledge too
3. Hearing about how long something is expected to take helps the team identify and clarify misunderstandings about the story or task
4. When the estimate is done by the team, and the work takes longer - the team takes the “blame” not the person

Question 8

What is a good iteration length?

Answer 8

Usually 2 to 4 weeks BUTTT there is no magic number ;)

Question 9

What factors should be considered when choosing an iteration length?

Answer 9

1. Length of the release being worked on
2. Amount of uncertainty
3. Ease of getting feedback
4. How long priorities can remain unchanged
5. Willingness to go without outside feedback
6. The overhead of iterating
7. How soon a feeling of urgency is estabolished

Question 10

What is the general rule for the length of the release being worked on?

Answer 10

Any project benefits from having at least 4 or 5 end-of iteration feedback opportunities

Since the length determines how often things are shown, progress can be measured, or how often the course is refined

Question 11

What is the general rule when it comes to the amount of uncertainty?

Answer 11

The more uncertainty there is, the shorter the iterations should be

Question 12

What are types of uncertainty?

Answer 12

Customer or users needs

what the velocity of the team will be

technical aspects of the work

Question 13

What is the general rule for the ease of getting feedback?

Answer 13

Iteration length should be chosen to maximize the amount, frequency, and timeliness of feedback to the entire team

Question 14

What is the general rule for how long priorities can remain unchanged?

Answer 14

Do not redirect the team from the goal of completing a specific set of features assigned to the iteration

• need to know how long it takes to take a new idea and turn it into software
• maintenance and support work included in iteration - reserve time must be accounted for

Question 15

What are the risks associated with the willingness to go without outside feedback?

Answer 15

results from an iteration could be useless since you missed out on valuable feedback

or less outside feedback means that there could be more misunderstandings with a greater loss when realized

Question 16

What are the options to estimating the velocity?

Answer 16

Use historical data to make estimation, run an iteration, or make a forecast

Question 17

How many hours a day would you use for someone to be working in a day?

Answer 17

6 hours