Planning in Agile

Basic idea

Planning in Agile is layered (portfolio → product → release → sprint → daily) and deferred — detailed planning happens at the start of each iteration, not up-front. Velocity (story points / sprint) drives forecasts.

Key formulas

• Fixed date: $SP_{min} = V_{min} \cdot N,\ SP_{max} = V_{max} \cdot N$
• Fixed scope: $S_{min} = SP_{total}/V_{max},\ S_{max} = SP_{total}/V_{min}$
• Velocity = mean story points completed per sprint.

Planning in Agile

Takes a signigicantly different flavour from traditional approaches.

Detailed planning is deferred until the start of the iteration.

• Designed to handle change
• An iteration includes all phases (requirements, design and test)

Planning is based on light weight lists

• Gannt and PERT charts are considered less useful

Planning in SCRUM

Level	Horizon	Who	Focus	Deliverables
Portfolio	Year or more	Stakholders, product owners	Manaing portfolio of projects	Portfolio backlog and collection of in-process products
Product	Months	Product owner, stakeholders	Visions and product evolution	Product vision, high level features, roadmap
Release	Three to Nine months	SCRUM team, Stakeholders	balance customer value, constraints	Release PLan
Sprint	Week to Month	SCRUM team	What to deliver next sprint	Sprint goals backlog
Daily	Daily	SCRUM Master, developement team	How to complete commited features	Inspection of current progress

Fixed Date Release Planning

1. Determine the number of sprints N by N := allocated_time/sprint_length
2. Groom the product backlog by estimating and prioritizing stories
3. Measure team velocity range, V_min, V_max
4. Compute minimum and maximum story points based on velocity. SP_min := V_min * N, SP_max := V_max * N
5. Draw lines through product backlog to show above

Fixed Scope Release Planning

1. Groom the product backlog by creating, estimating and prioritizing and identify must-have stories.
2. Determine total number of must have story points, SP_total.
3. Measure team velocity, V_min, V_max.
4. Compute minimum and maximum number of sprints, S_min := SP_total/V_max, S_max := SP_total/V_min
5. Show burndown chart

Siblings

• Definitions
• Developing Project Schedule
• Earned Value Analysis (EVA)
• Effort-time estimation
• Milestones vs Deliverables
• PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) chart
• Project Schedule
• Project Scheduling
• Project Tracking and Control
• Tasks