Category Archives: Release Planning

Question: How to order Stories in the PB

Question from a Class Attendee: A question, about ranking user stories. In the recent Scrum Master course, you indicated we should rank stories in the PB (Product Backlog) by Business Value and do them from the top down. In the Product Owner course back in 2011, you had us calculate R = BVP / SP […]

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Latest ‘Agile Release Planning’ ebooklet

I am pleased to announce that I have completed a full edit of the booklet. It covers: * Vision * Product Backlog * Business Value * Effort * Risks, Dependencies, Learning, MMFS, and other * Ordering the Work * Drawing the line * “Communications Plan” * The Fix-It Plan * Other things * Release Plan […]

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Do only high benefit/cost work!

Tom DeMarco wrote an article a while ago: “Software Engineering: An idea whose time has come and gone?” (2009)  I guess I am just catching up on my reading. One topic is: are metrics useful? I think the real issue is: how useful is it that we ‘control’ projects? His comparison is: 1. If we […]

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Kent McDonald on Release Planning

Here is a good article on release planning. Includes a video. Enjoy.

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The Term ‘Release Planning’

Is the term ‘Agile Release Planning’ useful? Mike Cohn has a good blog post about this, here. I agree and slightly disagree. First, we need to state the obvious principles. It is important, as far as possible, to be clear and consistent about what a word or phrase means. Release Planning normally implies planning for […]

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Agile Release Planning Booklet ver 1.08

Here is my latest Agile release planning booklet: “Joe’s Approach to Agile Release Planning.”  31 pages, including a table of contents.  Free now. PDF format. Some ideas or explanations are included, but mostly actionable steps. Feedback welcome.  jhlittle@kittyhawkconsulting.com

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Early Warning System

I was giving a course today, and we were discussing: should we do agile release planning at the beginning of the effort? (Reminder: release planning always also means release plan refactoring every sprint, to whatever degree it is needed.) My advice is: most teams I see need agile release planning for a day or two […]

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Do we Estimate in Scrum? Yes!

A really smart and experienced colleague says we should not estimate.  Specifically: in Scrum we should not estimate. Now, to get into the deep inner-workings of Lean and Continuous Flow…well, I am not going to go there today. As a minor point, I will say the latest Scrum Guide to me, says we estimate in […]

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Joe’s Agile Release Planning – New Version

While I was writing the book on Agile Release Planning I was posting free versions. The book is now available here: https://leanpub.com/joesagilereleaseplanning   But it is no longer free (except to class participants).  (Although I frequently have deals on LinkedIn or Twitter.) I hope you will leave comments or send me comments or questions.

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Is release planning worth it?

In a word: Yes, if done professionally. Next, let’s acknowledge that it is a fair question.  At some point, if release planning costs too much versus the benefits, then it is a waste.  But we do not find that the ratio is nearly that bad. How is release planning, and release plan refactoring… useful? A […]

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