Agile Planning - Backlog Management

Agile has not only reinforced the interest in project management, but also challenged the conventional ideas about such management. It focuses on project management institutions where it is difficult to plan ahead with mechanisms for empirical process control, such as where feedback loops constitute the core element of product development compared to traditional command-and-control-oriented management. It represents a radically new approach for planning and managing requirements a.k.a. backlog management, bringing decision-making authority to the level of operation properties and certainties.

The following video not only compares Agile backlog management with traditional backlog management, but also explains agile planning process in detail.

Agile Iteration Lifecycle

In this innovative video blog, Virtual Mr. Agile is helping an agile team through a series of live discussions with the team members to explain Agile iteration lifecycle. These discussions cover many topics such as agile manifesto, sprint "0", role of scrum master, definition of ready and done etc. You can watch more videos at community video channel .

Definition of READY

Is there any prerequisite for starting a sprint?
As Scrum defines, there are two critical stages in the process: READY & DONE . The Product Owner can easily double the velocity of a Scrum team by getting Product Backlog to a high READY state. Team can easily double story process efficiency by delivering as per their agreement of DONE . Individual self-organization can further enhance team velocity. Let's focus on prerequisite of starting a sprint i.e. being READY.

RULE OF THUMB : Definition of READY

• User Story is READY if a team can implement it, and a Product Owner can prioritize it.
• The Backlog is READY when about 1.5-2 times Sprint's worth of User Stories at the top of the backlog is READY, and those user stories are sufficiently small to allow good team flow.
• Team is READY when every team member is self-organized.

A Rule of Thumb: Do You Need A Sprint Zero?

There is a lot of debate about sprint "0". What is it and do you need it? Let's review it quickly in my series of Agile Helpline " Rules of Thumb ".

How sprint "0" it is defined by many people?

• Groom your product backlog to make it usable to plan and estimate
• Create a minimal environment that enables the writing of quality code
• Clean up technical debt carried from the previous releases
• (middle-management trick) Buy-in some time before team is really ready to work on the next release

A Rule of Thumb: Ideal Sprint Length

As teams start to mature in Agile and try scaling for further efficiencies, one of the most common questions is about the ideal length of the sprints. Most teams are not satisfied with their current sprint length. This may be simply because they might not have experimented with different sprint sizes. My suggestion is that teams should experiment with different sprint lengths to learn and adapt to their own realities. More iterations are better as long as team is mature enough to gain extra efficiency from it.

Retrospective

What is Sprint Retrospective? How long should the retrospective Last?

The retrospective meetings are an integral part of the inspect and adapt process in Agile and Scrum . It should be held at the end of every sprint after the sprint review meeting. The team and ScrumMaster meet to discuss what went well and what to improve in the next sprint. The retrospective should be time-boxed and should result in a practical action plan for improvement.