Agile Estimation & Planning Workshop Course Outline

One Day Workshop 

1. Recap –  Agile & Scrum approach to project development

• Scrum overview 

2. Agile estimation and Planning Principles

• Agile Planning  – Value Driven Planning Flow
• Understand Multi-level planning in Agile
• Estimation Flow
• Agile Estimation vs. Traditional
• The Cone of Uncertainty
• Value- Based Decomposition
• The Agile Lifecycle 

3. Product Backlog, Release Backlog and User Stories

• Requirement Lifecycle in Scrum
• Understanding what can go in Product and Release Backlog
• Themes, Epics, Features and User Stories
• What is Product Backlog Refinement and who all participate?
• Implementing DOR and DOD concepts
• When to Split User Stories
• User Story splitting techniques
• Case Study of writing Themes, Epics and Features
• Exercise on writing Release level DOR and DODs

4. Agile Estimation Techniques

• Methods for Deriving an Estimate
• Common Sizing Units – Ideal days and Story points
• Why Story Points?
• Affinity Estimating – how triangulation can help estimates improve over time.
• Story Points – Fibonacci Scale
• Planning Poker for Story Sizing
• The Complexity Bucket Method
• T-shirt Sizing
• White Elephant Sizing

5. Understanding Velocity and Capacity

• What is Velocity? – Understanding Velocity
• Velocity and Points
• Measuring Velocity
• How Velocity Helps with Planning
• Estimating Initial Velocity
• Capacity Planning
• Iteration Capacity Map

6. Building a Release Plan

• What is Release Planning?
• Building a Release Plan
• Sample Iteration and Release Plan
• How to fix Iteration duration
• Fixed Time…Fixed Scope
• Steps for Planning Fixed Scope
• Buffered Planning
• Planning for Additional Iterations
• Release Planning Exercise using Planning Poker techniques
• Case Study and Discussion – Parameters affecting velocity when team size changes, how to Communicate what’s possible when stakeholders request estimates for fixed dates, scope & cost

7. Building Agile Schedule

• Iteration (Sprint) Planning
• Tracking and Communicating

8. Multi Team Planning 

• Multi-Team Planning – Getting  consensus between teams about the common value of a unit of estimation and how to create a common baseline

9. Conclusion of Agile estimation and planning workshop