Joe’s Approach to Release Planning

Here’s what I think Release Planning should comprise.  I think for a 3-6 month release, this could be done in about 2-3 days.  With good enough quality to then start a Sprint the next day.I will explain release planning more in later posts.I do NOT guarantee that release planning is needed in all situations, nor that this particular approach will work in all situations.  Still, I have done this now with lots and lots of teams, and so far all have found it useful.  My experience is that everyone I have done this with has liked it after they did it.  And thought it was worthwhile.  And actually did almost all of it (and almost all that it implies to me, but is not stated here).

1. Vision
2. Product Backlog
• Roles
• User Story Workshop
3. Business Value
• What is BV for this project?
• Priority Poker –> BV points
4. Effort
• DOD
• Planning Pokers –> Story points
5. Risks, Dependencies, Other
6. ORDER THE WORK
7. Make scope-date trade-off
8. Calculate the budget for the release (usually a simple calculation)

Then we have to talk about some other things, and see where we go.  For example, often we find that the skill sets involved need to change (as we now see the product or project differently).

Then we have to do Release Plan Refactoring every sprint, until the number are decent.

As I have said elsewhere, the real value in doing this is NOT the ‘crappy’ estimates that the team arrives at after the initial release planning.  It is that everyone is now ‘on the same page’ about what the elephant is.  At least a whole lot more than we ever had before.  And I find that tremendously valuable.

Note: If they do really bad or no release planning, I think it ups the chances a lot that the stories are not small enough.  This means that lots of stories just can’t get to done, done in the sprint.  So, good release planning is linked to having good sprints!  Now, this problem (stories too big) can be fixed later, but god, all hell is breaking loose then.