running an agile release train (art) planning meeting with dean leffingwell and jennifer fawcett...

1 © 2008 - 2013 Scaled Agile, Inc. and Leffingwell, LLC. All rights reserved.

© 2008 - 2013 Scaled Agile, Inc. and Leffingwell, LLC.

Scaled Agile Framework ® is a trademark of Leffingwell, LLC.

Running an Agile Release

Planning Meeting

Dean Leffingwell & Jennifer Fawcett

Training . Certification . Community

[email protected]

V5.3


Welcome!

Today’s Scaled Agile Webinar is co-sponsor by...

http://www.AgilistaPM.com

DONNA REED... a Certified Agile-Lean Program & Project

Manager...enabling and leading organizations and teams to

become as Agile-Lean as possible — helping them determine

HOW, WHEN and WHERE to utilize Lean-Agile practices

along with their Traditional Waterfall methods of doing

projects.

DONNA has over 25 years experience in Product

Development and IT infrastructure projects for Fortune 500

companies such as: Allergan, Capital Group, CISCO, FileNet,

HP, IBM, Kofax, UnitedHealthcare, Symantec (Peter Norton),

TOYOTA, and Wellpoint.

http://www.agilistapm.com/

http://www.agilistapm.com/


A Note On Questions

Submit your questions via

the GoToWebinar Questions

panel

We’ll answer as many as

we can at the end of this

presentation

This webinar will be recorded

and made available at

Community.ScaledAgile.com

http://community.scaledagileacademy.com/


Framework Creator: Dean Leffingwell

Founder and CEO ProQuo, Inc., Internet

identity

Senior VP Rational Software

Responsible for Rational

Unified Process (RUP) &

Promulgation of UML

Founder/CEO Requisite, Inc.

Makers of RequisitePro

Founder/CEO RELA, Inc.

Colorado MEDtech

Creator: Scaled

Agile Framework

Agile Enterprise

Coach To some of the

world’s largest

enterprises

Agile Executive Mentor BMC, John Deere

Chief Methodologist Rally Software

Cofounder/AdvisorPing Identity, Roving Planet,

Silver Creek Systems, Rally

Software


The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

The Scaled Agile Framework is a proven, publicly-facing framework

for applying Lean and Agile practices at enterprise scale

Synchronizes alignment,

collaboration and delivery

Well defined in books

and now on the web

Scales successfully to large

numbers of practitioners and

teams

Core values:

1. Alignment

2. Code Quality

3. Program Execution

4. Transparency

®

http://ScaledAgileFramework.com

http://scaledagileframework.com/


Agile Teams

Empowered, self-organizing, self-managing teams with

developers, testers, and content authority

Teams deliver valuable, fully-tested software increments every

two weeks

Teams apply Scrum project management practices and XP

technical practices

Teams operate under program vision, system, architecture and

user experience guidance

Value description via User Stories


Scale to the Program Level

Common sprint lengths and normalized velocity

Face-to-face planning cadence provides development

collaboration, alignment, synchronization, and assessment

Value description via Features and Benefits

Self-organizing, self-managing team-of-agile-teams committed

to continuous value delivery

Continuously aligned to a common mission around enterprise

value streams

Deliver fully tested, system-level solutions every 8-12 weeks.


Scale to the Portfolio

Centralized strategy, decentralized execution

Investment themes provide operating budgets for release trains

Business and architectural epic kanban systems provide visibility

and work-in-process limits for product development flow

Enterprise architecture is a first class citizen

Objective metrics support governance and kaizen

Value description via Business and Architectural Epics


Release Planning Context


What is a PSI/Release?

Develop on Cadence. Deliver on Demand.


Release Planning Meeting Context

The Agile Release Train is ...

A self-organizing, self-managing agile program

organized around an enterprise value stream

Teams are synchronized in standard, fixed-length

sprints for delivery flow

The Release Planning Meeting is ...

The planning event for all members of an Agile

Release Train which results in a committed set of

program objectives for the next 8 – 12 weeks

The Agile Release Train Quickstart is ...

A five day program which provides training for all

team members on a program and then launches

their first Agile Release Train

The Release Planning Meeting is the SAFe program-level

planning session


The Release Planning Meeting

Two days every 8-12 weeks

Everyone attends in person if at all possible

Product Management owns feature priorities

Development team owns story planning and high-level estimates

Architects, UX folks work as intermediaries for governance,

interfaces and dependencies

Result: A committed set of program objectives for the next PSI

The Release Planning Meeting is the “pacemaker” of the Agile

enterprise


Prior to Release Planning


Content Preparation

Executive Briefing

State of the business and

upcoming objectives

Product Vision Briefing(s)

Vision and top 10 features

Architectural Vision Briefing

Vision for architecture, new

architectural epics, common

frameworks, etc.

Development Context

Changes to standard practices,

new tools and techniques, etc.

In preparation for release planning, leadership creates a series

of briefings to set context


Before Release Planning: the Cadence

Program Level Calendar

Release Planning

Meetings

PSI Demos

Inspect & Adapt

Workshops

Team Level Calendar

Sprint Planning

Meetings

Sprint Demos

Sprint Retrospectives

As part of preparing the organization for the Agile Release Train, the

program planning calendar for the next year is set

Reprinted by Permission of Discount Tire Company


The Release Planning Process

Input: Business and technology vision, milestones, and top ten features

Output: PSI Objectives and Program Board

“Top 10

features”

Vision

Team A PSI

Objectives

Team B PSI

Objectives

Team C PSI

Objectives Team J PSI

Objectives

Program PSI

Objectives

...

Program Board (Program Plan)


Release Planning Day 1


Sample Agenda for Day 1

8:00- 9:00

9:00- 10:30

1:00- 4:00

5:00- 6:00

10:30-11:30

4:00- 5:00

11:30- 1:00

State of the business and upcoming

objectives

Vision and prioritized features

Architecture, common frameworks, etc.

Agile tooling, engineering practices, etc.

Facilitator explains planning process

Teams present draft plans, risks, and

impediments

Teams develop draft plans and identify

risks and impediments

Architects and Product Managers

circulate

Adjustments made based on challenges,

risks, and impediments

1 2 3 4


Business Context

There is no prescribed format

but some options include:

The portfolio investment

themes are communicated

The organization’s

strengths, weaknesses,

opportunities, and threats

(using “SWOT Analysis”)

To kick off Release Planning, executive leadership shares the state of

the business and upcoming objectives

Alex Sun, CEO, Mitchell International

Reprinted by Permission of Mitchell

International


Product / Solution Vision

Product Management presents the content vision and the high priority

features

Reprinted by Permission of TradeStation Technologies Reprinted by Permission of Discount Tire

Corporation


Architecture Vision and Dev Practices

Architecture and Technology are “first class citizens” in release

planning, not afterthoughts!

A system architect may present the vision for architecture, new

architecture epics, and common frameworks

Development management may provide changes to standard

practices, new tools and techniques for build and test automation,

expectations for the definition of done

Reprinted by Permission of Nordstrom


Planning Context: Setting the Stage

Walkthrough of:

Team planning process

Planning acceptance criteria

Program Board

Each team had the same deliverables:

An objectives sheet

One sheet per sprint for stories

One risk sheet for risks and impediments

The facilitator sets a shared understanding of the planning process

and deliverables for the planning process


Team Breakout #1

In breakouts, each team breaks

down their features into user

stories which are estimated and

placed into Sprints

There is a lot of back and

forth between the teams –

mostly understanding and

minimizing dependencies Photos Reprinted by Permission of TradeStation Technologies


Team Breakout #1: Color Coding

We can visually see

that some teams

may have significant

backlog items

dedicated to things

like maintenance

We color code the backlog items to give visibility into the investments

Yellow

Purple

Red/

Pink Green

Orange

= Risks and

Dependencies

= Dev Infrastructure /

Improvement Stories

= User Stories

= Maintenance

= Spikes

Red/

Pink

= Addressed Risks

and Dependencies


Sprint 1.1 Sprint 1.2 Sprint 1.3 Sprint 1.4 Sprint 1.5

(HIP)

Milestones/

Events

Features with

Input

Dolphins

Bears

Iguanas

Blue = Features Red String = A dependency requiring

a feature input to be completed before

a feature can be completed

Yellow = Feature

Input

Antelope

Tarantulas

Eagles

UX

Architecture

Orange = Milestone/

Event

PSI 2 >>>

Team Breakout #1: Dependencies


Team Breakout #1: PSI Objectives

About a Team’s PSI Objectives...

They often will map directly to the features in the

backlog...

... and they sometimes may not. For example, an

objective may be:

– The aggregation of a set of features stated in more

concise terms

– A milestone like “trade show demo by March 15th.”

– An architectural epic (feature?) like “gateway pointing

rearchitecture”

– A major refactoring

In team breakout session #2, business owners will be

circulating and ranking them by business value on a

scale of 1 – 10

At the end of day 2, teams will be committing to PSI

objectives, not individual stories

PSI objectives are brief summaries, in business terms, of what each

team intends to deliver in the upcoming PSI


Team Breakout #1: Scrum of Scrums

Hourly Scrum of Scrums

Planning Checkpoint

Keeps teams on track

with hourly planning

milestones

Helps drive out risks,

impediments, and

dependencies

The hourly scrum of scrums checkpoint helps keep teams on track

and facilitates early identification of risks

Simple Planning “Radiators”


Draft Plan Review

The draft plan review is the engine of program conversation

Draft Plan Review Agenda

1. Velocity (Capacity) and Load

2. Overview of plan flow

3. Draft PSI objectives

4. Program risks, impediments, and

Program Board dependencies

5. Q&A

Reprinted by Permission of TradeStation Technologies


Managers Review & Problem Solving

Common Questions During

the Managers Review:

What did we just learn?

Where do we need to adjust

Vision? Scope? Resources?

Where are the bottlenecks?

What sacred projects must

be sacrificed?

What decisions must we

make between now and

tomorrow to address these

issues?

At the end of day 1, management meets to make adjustments to

scope and objectives based on the day’s planning

Reprinted by Permission of Discount Tire Company


Release Planning Day 2


Sample Agenda for Day 2

8:00- 9:00

9:00- 11:00

11:00- 1:00

Planning adjustments made based on

previous day’s management meeting

Teams present final plans, risks, and

impediments

Teams develop final plans and refine risks

and impediments

Business Owners circulate and assign

business value to team objectives

1 2 3 4

2-2:15

1:00- 2:00

Remaining program-level risks are

discussed and ROAMed

Team and program confidence vote

After Commitment

2:15- ???

If necessary, planning continues until

commitment is achieved

Retrospective

Moving Forward

Final Instructions

1 2 3 4

!


Planning Adjustments

Possible Changes:

Business priorities

Adjustment to plan

Changes to scope

Movement of resources

Based on the previous day’s Management Review and Problem

Solving meeting, adjustments are discussed

Reprinted by Permission of TradeStation Technologies

Reprinted by

Permission of

Discount Tire

Company


Team Breakout #2

Based on new knowledge (and a good night’s sleep), teams create

their final plans

In the second team

breakout, business owners

circulate and assign

business value to PSI

objectives (1 – 10)

Teams finalize the PSI plan

Teams also consolidate

program risks, impediments,

and dependencies


Objectives and Stretch Objectives

Business Owners review final objectives, ask for

modifications where necessary and assign business value

Business Owners approve the objectives - teams figure out

how to implement them most efficiently

Maintains central control of strategy,

while establishing a value based

decision-making framework for the teams

Stretch objectives provide the capacity

and guard band needed to increase

cadence-based delivery reliability

Central control of strategy; decentralized control of execution.

Stretch objectives provide reliability guard band.


Final Plan Review

During final plan review, plans are reviewed again and convergence

should occur

Final Plan Review Agenda

1. Changes to velocity and load

2. Final PSI objectives with

business value

3. Program risks, impediments,

and Program Feature Board

dependencies

4. Q&A


Building the Final Plan

Final plans are reviewed

by all teams

Business Owners are

asked whether they

accept the plan

If so, the teams plan and

program risk sheet is

brought to the front of the

room

If not, the plans stay in

place and the team

continues planning after

the review

Final plans are collected at the front of the room

Reprinted by Permission of Discount Tire Corporation


Program Risks

ROAMing Risks:

Resolved – has been

addressed; no longer a

concern

Owned – someone has

taken responsibility

Accepted – nothing

more can be done. If risk

occurs, release may be

compromised

Mitigated – team has

plan to adjust as

necessary

After all plans had been presented, remaining program risks and

impediments are discussed and categorized


PSI Confidence Vote: the Commitment

“Fist of Five” confidence vote for

hitting objectives:

1 = No confidence; will not happen

2 = Little confidence; probably will not

happen

3 = Good confidence; the team should

be able to meet the objectives

4 = High confidence; should happen

5 = Very high confidence; will happen

After dependencies are resolved and risks are addressed, a

confidence vote is taken at the team and program levels

A Commitment with Two Parts:

1. Teams agree to do everything in their power to meet the agreed-to objectives

2. In the event that fact patterns dictate that it is simply not achievable, teams agree to

escalate immediately so that corrective action can be taken


Plan Rework if Necessary

The Program Timebox

Just as the Sprint Planning

Meeting is timeboxed, so is

the Release Planning

Meeting

Leaving the two day

planning meeting without a

committed plan is not an

option. Teams stay to

rework their plans and

“ROAM” their risks and

impediments

What happens if there is low confidence? Rework!


Planning Meeting Retrospective

The Release Planning meeting will evolve over time. Ending with a

retrospective will help it continuously improve.

Add the action items to your program backlog and take action!

The Planning Meeting

Retrospective

1.What went well

2.What didn’t

3.What we can do

better next time


Moving Forward

Tooling Support and Big Visible

Information Radiators

– How the artifacts created in Release

Planning will be captured

The cadence of other PSI events

– Scrum of Scrums

– Release Management meetings

– And more...

The Release Planning Meeting ends with what happens beyond PSI


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running an agile release train (art) planning meeting with dean leffingwell and jennifer fawcett...

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