In The adoption of Agile I stated that ‘Agile’ is not one method, but a set of common principles and practices. The same goes for ‘Agile Planning’.
I created my My.Fragility framework iteratively over the various software development projects I mastered, all serving to realize a (negotiable) scope within a certain timeframe.
The included Product Backlog Estimation model allows to:
- Write User Stories. Or Epic Stories
- Make up estimates in Ideal Time / Story Points
- Determine Velocity. Possibly, but not advisable, per story
- Determine #pairs. Consider project elapse time, max = 6
- Determine #FTE for umbrella tasks. Upon #pairs and complexity
- Set daily rates
- Set slack, holiday percentage and coach development
- Assess result & iterate using other parameters
- Set Value of Stories. Total to be 100 (for relative tracking)
The Product Backlog Tracking model implements my Tracking Loops:
This assures a continuous image of spent and expected progress, effort, budget and delivered value, at Product and at Sprint level.
The book User Stories Applied by Mike Cohn was a great source of inspiration. Essentials I still use are:
- User Stories, Epic Stories and micro (tiny) Stories
- The INVEST acronym
- Complexity scaling. I use ‘1-2-5’ (over Fibonacci)
Mike’s publisher (Prentice Hall) has made 2 chapters of his second book Agile Estimating and Planning available, for F R E E:
- Chapter 1: The purpose of planning
- Chapter 3: An agile approach to estimating and planning
Would be interested to know more about this My.Fragility framework. I clicked multiple times on the myfragility link and it didn’t work.
Hi PM Hut
Clicking on the logo will indeed not help, as there is no website or so behind it.
I am still working on documenting my framework. It is a collection of practices that have been integrated over the projects I have mastered. It incorporates the Scrum process with engineering standards from XP, to which I have added some roles, but especially an estimation and tracking model. My 2 tools in particular help me a lot. I’ve been looking at various ‘official’ tools (like Mingle, Agilo for Scrum, Jira+Greenhopper, VersionOne) and, honestly, I haven’t come across a tool that has convinced me to stop using my own (Excel) models. (where I am working currently as a consultant, they will start using my model as well after comparison with these other tools)
I’v called it my.Fragility, as that holds “agility” but mainly as daring to be fragile was one of the biggest (and most satisfying) steps ion evolving from Project Manager to ScrumMaster.
Currently I am finishing my presentation. I’ll send it as soon as it is (temporarily) done (gotta keep evolving, you know). Next I will revise the introduction I have on my estimation model.
Thanks for the interest.
Kind regards