Category Archives: Release Planning

Joe’s Agile Release Planning

I have written a new booklet that I want you to have (I think you will find it useful) and also to comment on. It is about Agile Release Planning. [Note: It was a booklet, it is now a book.  See: https://leanpub.com/joesagilereleaseplanning] It proposes that agile release planning consists of these major steps (at least): […]

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Two Levels of (Agile) Planning

Almost all firms that I work with have at least two levels of planning.  I call them “high level” and “team level.”  High Level At the high level, project or product ideas come in.  Someone has to prioritize these opportunities initially, to see which ones make the cut.  Often this is formally done once a […]

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3 Methods to increase Business Value

Yesterday I enjoyed talking to Southern Fried Agile, the local one-day agile conference in Charlotte.  My topic was: Three Steps Toward Greater Business Value. I was pleased to see many participants wanted to discuss this subject. So much so, that the organizers decided to run the session twice. I am happy this is considered an […]

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Agile Release Planning is not about the Plan

Here is one key observation about release planning from the past week and a half. I have been working in France.  I have worked with 3 different companies, and a bunch of great people. In the third class, we did a 2-day workshop.  The Workshop was mainly about agile release planning, using the real work […]

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Refactoring the Release Plan

At the end of the last post, I had completed the initial release plan. What were the key outcomes? [This is one in a series of posts about release planning. Search (see right) on Release Planning to find many others.] We had a product backlog.  The plan had some sort of scope, date and budget.  […]

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Release Planning: Completing the Plan

[This post is one of a series on Release Planning. The series starts here.] As discussed in the previous post on Release Planning, the user stories are now ordered. Now we must complete the Release Plan. So, we must make the trade-off between scope and date. There are three ways to do this: 1. Fixed […]

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Release Planning: Risks, Dependencies, Learning, MMFS and Other

[This is a continuation of a series on Release Planning that starts here.] Now we come to the point of (re)ordering the Product Backlog (PB). Note: After calculating the R Factor, I like to order the PB by R.  Not that I would expect the Team to do the work in that order, but to […]

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Release Planning: Effort (2)

[This is a continuation of a series on Release Planning that starts here.] Now we come to the point of describing Planning Poker. This has been done before; we will be brief.  It is described at greater length many other places. *** Some basic characteristics: * We find the 5 best experts (or 4-7 people) […]

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Release Planning: Product Roadmap

I did a session today at the Atlanta Scrum Gathering about ‘Joe’s Approach to Release Planning.’  Jason Tanner asked “what about the product roadmap?”  And his question made me realize that I have not said enough about that. My quick thoughts. 1. You need a product roadmap. For almost all products, at least almost all […]

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Release Planning: Effort (1)

[For those who have not been reading here before, this is a continuation of a series that starts here.] Now we move on to Effort in Release Planning. *** The title of this blog post might be misleading.  Estimating the effort of a full Release per se is not quite what we want to do. […]

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