Collaboration at Scale: Distributed Team Release Planning 11-Jan-2017
Collaboration at Scale Designed for Scrum-centric organizations with more than 10 Scrum teams, the Collaboration at Scale webinar series provides focused, outcome-driven solutions to collaboration problems faced by Product Owners, ScrumMasters, and Development Teams. Produced by the Scrum Alliance and Conteneo, Inc., we re proud of the many distinguished experts who share their wisdom in our series. Luke Hohmann Kevin Rosengren
Common Scrum Challenges Dependencies Liftoffs Roadmap Done, Done DAILY SCRUM MEETING (EVERY 24 HOURS) 2-4 WEEK SPRINT Refining Value Based Backlog s Feb 2017: Identifying Requirements CI/CD Release PRODUCT BACKLOG Retros SPRINT BACKLOG Planning Priorities Tech Debt POTENTIALLY SHIPABLE PRODUCT INCREMENT 3
POLL QUESTION How often are you releasing? Continuously Weekly Monthly Every 3 months Every 6 months Yearly Not sure 4
POLL QUESTION How often are you planning for releases? Continuously Weekly Monthly Every 3 months Every 6 months Yearly Not sure 5
Agenda 1 What is a Release Plan? 2 Release Planning Event: Preparation Kevin Rosengren 3 Distributed Release Planning: Techniques 4 Avoiding Release Planning Pitfalls 5 Case Study Luke Hohmann 6
What is a Release Plan? 7
A release plan is a high level plan for achieving releasable value (typically across multiple sprints). Which PBIs will be tackled in which Sprint?
Release Plans are mid-level tactics on the Agile Planning Time Horizon Strategy many years Exec Portfolio years Portfolio Map PM Dev Team Product Release Sprint Daily 1 3 years 2-9 mos 1-4 wks Vision & Roadmap Release Plan Sprint Backlog Org Level Planning level Time Horizon Artifact
One Backlog to Rule Guide Them All! New Feature User story Bug Fix nnn Enhancement PO nnn Team 3 User Story User Story Distributed teams may have local POs but there is one backlog. PO Team 1 Team 2 nnn PO Team 5 CAS Nov 2016: Backlogs Team 4 Team 6 10
Release Plans emerge from strong product backlogs through Release Planning events PO Release Planning Meetings are often 1-3 days! PO 11
Release Planning is a Contact Sport 12
Release Planning Event: Preparation Confirm Vision Prepare Backlog Understand team distribution Schedule the meetings 13
POLL QUESTION What is the nature of your distribution structure? PO in one location, Team in another Members of teams in different locations Whole teams in different locations 14
Well defined backlogs begin with shared Product Vision Cover Story Product Box Try it online: bit.ly/weave-cover-story 15
A Release Planning Ready Product Backlog Well groomed Prioritized based on value Ready, Ready May be sized... My Backlog... 16
PO in one location, Team(s) in another PO Track time zones Confirm tools 17
PO in one location, Team Split PO Track time zones Confirm tools 18
All of the Above! PO PO Product Manager Track time zones Confirm tools Expect check-ins 19
Determine Work Allocation Strategy Infrastructure / Service Teams Customer Centric Feature Teams Component Teams 20
Making a Distributed Release Planning Event Successful 21
Topics To Cover Share / Confirm Product Vision Review Top Backlog Items / Cutline Parcel / Work to Teams / Local POs Teams Engage in Release Planning Confirm Local Release Plans Integrate Release Plans & Confirm Windows Celebrate and Start Sprinting! 22
Share Vision and Essential PBIs 23
Distribute PBIs to Teams A. New Feature C. Bug Fix A. New Feature E. User Story B. User Story H. New Feature C. Bug Fix M. User Story D. Epic E. User Story F. User Story G. Tech Change H. New Feature I. User Story D. Epic J. Bug Fix F. User Story K. Epic G. Tech Change L. User Story J. Bug Fix M. User Story B. User Story I. User Story K. Epic L. User Story 24
Teams Estimate Via Planning Poker A. New Feature C. Bug Fix E. User Story H. New Feature M. User Story Release Planning Poker Refine Stories 1 3 2 5 8 13 21 50 A. New Feature 8 C. Bug Fix 2 E. User Story E.1. -------- 3 E.2. --------- 2 E.3. ------------ 2 E.5. --------- 1 E.6. --------- 2 E.7. ---------- 3 H. New Feature H.1. ---- 3 H.2. ---- 3 H.3. ---- 3 H.4. ---- 2 M. User Story 8 25
Add Integration Stories à CI/CD Normal Backlog Item Integration Story CAS Aug 2016: Dependencies 26 http://devops.com/2015/03/03/i-want-to-do-continuous-deployment/
Teams Allocate Work Into Sprints Via Velocity A. New Feature 8 C. Bug Fix 2 E. User Story Sprint Sprint Sprint A E.1 E.6 Sprint H.1 Sprint H.4 E.1. -------- 3 E.2. --------- 2 E.3. ------------ 2 C E.2 E.7 H.2 E.5. --------- 1 E.6. --------- 2 E.3 H.3 E.7. ---------- 3 Integration H. New Feature E.5 H.1. ---- 3 H.2. ---- 3 I H.3. ---- 3 H.4. ---- 2 M. User Story 8 27
Remember to Estimate a Release Window Estimate a low and a high steady state velocity Calculate release window Add an appropriate buffer The difference between low & high is your market window Analyze relative to roadmap & backlog and adjust accordingly 28
Attributes of Effective Release Plans 29
Attributes of High-Impact Release Plans 9+ months? DANGER 5 8 months - Warning 1 4 months Good! Risk Sprint Sprint Sprint Sprint Sprint 30
Avoiding Release Planning Pitfalls 31
Pitfall: Deferring Architecture/Infrastructure Symptoms: Release plans are incremental with no iteration Technical debt appears to be increasing Architectural improvements continually deferred Resolution: Identify architectural improvements via Prune the Product Tree Ensure they are added to roadmap Ensure they are integrated into backlog Try it online: bit.ly/ptpt-with-roots 32
Pitfall: Relentless Releasing Symptoms: Scrum is no longer fun Little or no time for exploration Little or no learning / experimentation Resolution: Schedule a Sprint between releases for: Exploration Learning Entropy Reduction Little Stuff Adds Up 33
Pitfall: Forgetting Humanity Symptoms: One team always bears the brunt of early/late meetings One team always gets the same kind of work Resolution: Adjust / alternative timing of Scrum ceremonies Establish local autonomy Encourage even more self-organization in release planning 34
Case Study: Conteneo Weave 1.0 35
Our Motivations Were Easy 36
We Design Jammed With Customers! We Design Jammed with Customers 37
We Design Jammed with Customers 38
We Listened and Explored Concepts Pinterest for Frameworks? So, just how many things need to be improved in the current project organizer? 39
We Created Entirely New Story Maps Goals Tasks How we can make it better How we do it now We covered User Story Maps in the CAS Nov 2016 Webinar. 40
We Developed Goals and Guidelines Single Page App for smoother, faster loads Consistent iconography for all actions Layout guidelines Always have something to do Separation of framework from forums (long story short: No framework clones!) Pinterest-style UI for frameworks Remove unused public frameworks Ensure all existing data just works while paving the way for even more future awesomeness 41
Dashboard Frameworks Weave 1.0 Original Release plan Scheduling Part 1 Scheduling & Projects Framework Cleanup Fun Tune December 2016 42
Weave 1.0 Adjusted Release Plan Dashboard Frameworks Scheduling Part 1 Scheduling & Projects Security Fixes A routine security audit identified three opportunities for improvements. Enterprise-grade security is important so we immediately allocated 1.5 Sprints to push out these security improvements. Framework Cleanup Fun Tune 23-Jan-2017 43
Summary 44
Creating a release plan is hard work. But it is absolutely worth it!
POLL QUESTION What do you want for the Mar 2017 webinar? Impact Mapping Distributed Team Liftoffs / Kickoffs Building Alignment and Empathy Building a ScrumMaster Community of Practice Keeping Retrospectives Fresh Identifying Customer/Stakeholder Requirements My desired topic isn t listed email luke.hohmann@conteneo.co 46
Special Webinar! 18-Jan-2016 bit.ly/2jbnekp Collaborating with Thousands to Millions of Stakeholders to Prioritize City Budgets and Grow Communities Through the last several months, the Collaboration at Scale webinar series has been exploring how you can augment core Scrum practices with frameworks that enable large, typically distributed teams to tackle a wide variety of problems. In this special session of the Collaboration at Scale webinar series, we are going to explore how these frameworks when guided by the values of both the Agile Manifesto and Scrum give us the ability to tackle problems at societal scale. We're going to explore Participatory Budgeting, a process created in Latin America in which ordinary citizens directly control portions of the city budget. We're also going to explore how cities like San José, CA are adapting frameworks like Prune the Product Tree to solicit feedback from the residents on how all members and stakeholders within the community residents, companies and others can help their community, district and city grow. You'll gain a fresh perspective on how you can use your skills to improve your practice of Scrum and help tackle complex societal problems. 47
Discussions 48
Luke Hohmann conteneo.co Kevin Rosengren appliedframeworks.com Thank you for attending. Our next webinar is 15-Feb-2017 on Identifying Customer/Stakeholder Requirements. http://bit.ly/2idmbfw