Understanding the

FIVE Levels of

Agile Planning

‣ Mark Arntz, ASPE

‣ 24 years in software development.

‣ PMP since 2006, PMI-ACP, CSM, SA

‣ 3 years training, leading, and coaching Agile teams.

Introduction and Agenda

‣ Agenda

‣ Why a new Planning Approach

‣ The Lean Approach to Planning

‣ The 5 Levels of Agile Planning

‣ Close and Questions

How do I get what I want from my efforts?

Simple

Things

Complicated

Things

Complex

Things

Chaos

Where does software

development fit?

Just Do It!

Defined Process:

Create the Plan then

Work the Plan Empirical Process Intuition

How do I get what I want from my efforts?

Where does software

development fit?

What is an Empirical Process

‣ Scientific Method

‣ Learning Process

‣ PDCA or Plan, Do, Check Adjust

• Experimentation

• Visibility

• Inspection

• Adaption

Agile is built on LEAN principles

• Lean was developed in the laboratory of Toyota.

• Answers the question:

How do we compete against American automotive

manufacturing with less of everything?

• Edwards Deming was the first Lean Consultant.

• Leverages learnings from American grocery store

supply chain management.

• Has a track record of over 50 years.

• Has been transformed to fit all parts of the business,

and now Software.

• A paradigm of learning or an Empirical Process

• Makes Agile: Not just the next fad of the day.

Continuous, Just In Time Requirements Elaboration

LEAN PRINCIPLE

Parts Warehouse

X 1,000,000’s

Shock Absorber

NEW Shock Absorber

X Just what we

need right now

Manufacturing

! Need new

Shock Absorber

?

Best Available Parts | No Risk of Waste

Just In Time Inventory Meant:

Just In Time? How Does This Relate to

Software?

LEAN PRINCIPLE

‣ Like Toyota found with their manufacturing,

elaborating on requirements JIT means:

‣ The team plans with the latest information

available

‣ Early detailed planning efforts are not at risk for

becoming waste

‣ An up-front plan that is wrong does not lead to

failure, it leads to course correction

When is value created, at the point of planning, or

at the point of delivery?

Allowance for Change

‣ Opens the opportunity to deliver a better product

than what could be initially planned for

‣ Values new information that becomes available to

the team or customer

‣ Respects the complexity of software and

acknowledges that we can’t know everything up

front

‣ Allowance for change requires not just a single plan

up-front, but CONTINUOUS PLANNING

1

3

2

4

5

Vision Planning Yearly by the product owner

Roadmap Planning Bi-yearly by the product owner

Quarterly by the product owner and team

Iteration Planning Bi-weekly by the team

Daily Planning Daily by the team and individuals

Release Planning

The 5 Levels of Agile Planning

Levels of Planning:

Elevations above the Details

Project / Product Details

Daily Planning

Iteration Planning

Release Planning

Roadmap Planning

Vision Planning 40,000

30,000

20,000

10,000

Ground

Product Vision Planning

‣ Not a requirements specification

‣ Concise, easy to digest

‣ Easy to communicate, easy to re-communicate

‣ Driven by the product owner to answer...

First Level of Planning

WHAT WHY the product is it is important &

30,000

20,000

10,000

Ground

VISION

Product Roadmap Planning

‣ Takes the high-level vision and decomposes it into

themes

‣ Sets themes against rough timeline

‣ Illustrates priority across product areas

‣ Used as a strategic tool by the product owner

‣ Helps drive product backlog prioritization

Second Level of Planning

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun

Security

User Admin

Payments Fulfillment

Product Admin

40,000

20,000

10,000

Ground

ROADMAP

Release Planning

‣ Seeks to determine what will be included in

the product and when it can be delivered

‣ Takes into consideration:Stories (product

backlog), priorities, story points,

velocityCustomer/Product Owner input

Third Level of Planning

Iteration 1 Story A - 3 pts

Story B - 2 pts

Story D - 5 pts

Iteration 2 Story C - 5 pts

Story E - 2 pts

Story F - 3 pts

Iteration 3 Story G - 8 pts

Story H - 3 pts

Release 1

40,000

30,000

10,000

Ground

RELEASE

Iteration Planning

‣ Development team identifies all tasks

needed to deliver the iteration’s user stories

‣ Each task is estimate in hours

‣ Team ensures that they have

the capacity to complete

the identified work

‣ Team Commitment

Fourth Level of Planning

Iteration 1 Story A - 3 pts

Story B - 2 pts

Story D - 5 pts

Story A Task 1 - 1 hr

Task 2 - 8 hrs

Task 3 - 2 hrs

Story B Task 1 - 8 hrs

Task 2 - 4 hrs

Task 3 - 2 hrs

Task 4 - 4 hrs

Story D Task 1 - 1 hr

Task 2 - 16 hrs

Task 3 - 12 hrs

Task 4 - 4 hrs

40,000

30,000

20,000

Ground

ITERATION

Daily Planning

‣ NOT a simple status report

‣ Inspect and Adapt mechanism

for the team

‣ What did I complete

yesterday?

‣ What will I commit to

completing today?

‣ What obstacles or

impediments exist?

‣ In short, team attempts to determine if they are on track

to meet the commitments they made for the iteration

Fifth Level of Planning

40,000

30,000

20,000

DAILY

30,000

Release 1 Release 2 Release 3 Release 4

Inventory

Database

Payment

Systems

Security

Fulfillment

Systems

Product Tracking Customer Loyalty

Advertising

Product Roadmap

Product Vision

The Five Levels of Planning How They All Work Together

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

1

2

3

4

5

‣ Find experts that can point

you in the right direction if

you need help or guidance.

‣ Share what you learn about

the approach with those

teams around you

‣ It takes time to get good at

anything, Agile is no

exception, but the rewards

are well worth it.

Your Call To Action

Your Questions, My Answers

Note: For those questions we do not have time to answer during the

webinar, I will be providing a written response.