Larry Apke
Agile Expert
www.agile-doctor.com
larry@agile-doctor.com
Standing on the Shoulders
 Presented by Lee Henson
 Part of his CSM training
 http://blog.agiledad.com/
 http://www.slideshare.net/agiledad/rapid-release-
planning
 I have tweaked Lee’s methods some, but the
underlying concepts remain the same.
The 5 Things I Need to Know
 Time
 Capacity/Velocity
 Size
 Priority
 Dependencies
The Order to Do Things
 Figure out timeframe
 “Right-size” the backlog – make sure all stories are
there (including technical debt, defects, etc.) and
remove what does not need to be there
 Figure out capacity from velocity
 Assign every story a relative size
 Assign every story a relative priority
 Figure out dependencies among stories
Figure out timeframe
 Sprint?
 Release?
 Plan Window?
For example, 2 week sprints, 3 month release. Or 2 week
sprints, 4 month “rolling release” plan, release every
month.
“Right-size” the backlog
 If you haven’t done the work in the last ____ months,
should it still be on the active backlog?
 Make sure that known defects are included
 Solicit stories for technical debt
Figure out capacity from velocity
 Velocity – past, Capacity – future
 Need to have a quick way to size stories –
representative stories (S, M, L, XL – 1 each that
everyone can agree on).
 Use the representative stories to use past history to
determine past velocity and extrapolate future capacity
Figure out capacity from velocity
 Send out spreadsheet of past stories and have team
members assign sizes based on representative story
sizes
 Knee jerk reaction (100 stories – 15-20 minutes – XS, S,
M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL)
 Stories with agreement are assigned numbers based on
the results
 Any major disagreements will be hashed out in a
meeting
Figure out capacity from velocity
 Team gives you sizes (easier than planning poker), you
convert to points
 Take all their responses and add to a spreadsheet
 XS – 1, S – 2, M – 3, L – 5, XL – 8, XXL – 13, XXXL – 20
 From these you will get velocity – project that forward
for future sprint capacity
Assign every story a relative size
 Do the same thing with future backlog items that you
did with past backlog items
 One exception- any story that is given XXL needs to be
broken down into stories that fit into XS-XL.
 Send out spreadsheet and only discuss those items
where there is disagreement
Assign every story a relative priority
 Once information on relative sizing has been
completed, all the information needed for relative
priority should be complete
 Every story should have a priority – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 … 100
Generate release schedule
 You will want to plan as if dependencies do not matter
 In the real world they do so realign your plan as
necessary to adjust for such things
 Make sure that dependent stories are scheduled with
or after the stories they depend on
Moving Forward
 Once you have release plan then the rule is “one in –
one out”
 You can handle any new story or story change as long
as the story has priority, size and dependency (time
and capacity should have been previously determined)
 Keep in mind that capacity can change as well –
determine a rough points/person and use it to estimate
increases/decreases in team size
Questions