One of the beautiful things about Agile teams, specifically team’s using a time-boxed method like Scrum in partnership with a relative estimation technique like Planning Poker®, is the notion of Velocity.
Teams use velocity as a planning tool in order to predict what can be done when, and if the team does proper sizing of their stories – Velocity can be a highly accurate planning tool.
The challenges?
- At the beginning Velocity is just a guess. It takes time for it to become an accurate planning tool.
- Customers are conditioned to death-marches at the end of projects and figuring out how to make it happen. (Not a “sustainable pace”)
- There are inevitably emerging requirements that change what we think will be part of release because of the IKIWISI principle (I Know It When I See It).
What does that lead to?
The insane thought that we can cram lots of extra stuff in right at the end of a release cycle.
I plead that you stop feeding the machine. Break the cycle, and acknowledge: Velocity is not a Glad® ForceFlex® trash bag.
Change is the norm, and options are simple.
Teams have release plans, requirements emerge, target release dates exist, things will want to be added. Ultimately there are only 3 choices the team can make.
- Accept the additional items into the Release Plan and change the date of the release (add a sprint – or 3)
- Accept the additional items into the Release Plan, but change something about team composition in order to accomplish more each iteration or enlist an additional team to work on a portion of the product (likely still requires a shift in the release date because that would disrupt the cadence of the team)
- Remove something from the backlog, and keep the date
- a. Remove other items already on the Release Plan in favor of the new higher priority items
- b. ‘Lean’ the Acceptance Criteria of items on the release plan so that the size of the items decreases and more can be accomplished
Consider the following techniques in order to help manage expectations for your controlling the ‘ForceFlex®’ of your velocity:
- KANO Analysis for the items targeted for the release. Have an honest conversation about is Must Have, Satisfier, and Delighter.
- Update the Release Plan at the end of each Iteration. This will keep it as up-to-date as possible and properly manage expectations about what will be delivered when.
- Manage a Tactile Release Plan. Having a physical plan on the wall where you have to actually move things from one iteration to another based on not completing something, or adding something new to the backlog will emphasize the sense of accountability needed to A) Have a well groomed, deep, and thorough backlog as part of Release Planning activities and B) Make authentic commitments about what can be completed each Iteration.
Read more about my thoughts on Release Planning in these posts:
Also, Did you know?
You can get single-deck packs or 12-deck packs of Planning Poker® cards on Amazon.Planning Poker® is a registered trademark of Mountain Goat Software
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