Effective Iteration Planning

Readings

Myth

The purpose of client meeting is to review what you did.

Reality

The purpose of client meeting is to plan what you're doing next.

Iteration Meeting Pitfall

  • Only expanding details for one story.
  • Worse, not even getting that far.

Iteration Planning Goal

  • You want at least 3 or 4 stories "ready to do"
  • This is a lot to do in one hour.

Focus on what's next

  • Good: writing scenarios and user stories, defining acceptance and user tests, sketching UI flow
  • Bad: reviewing details of the current app, creating detailed UI mockups, creating an app wish list, discussing technical options.
    • Ask client to elaborate"wish list" items offline for next week

Be Specific

  • Expanding a user story means defining
    • all changes to the screens and transitions
    • at least one acceptance test -- a concrete example with real data, input conditions, and output results
    • how the client plans to user test the change
  • Could easily take 15 to 20 minutes to expand one user story.

Timebox

  • Have a general agenda, e.g.,
    • 10 minutes: collect issues with current slice (don't fix)
    • 45 minutes: select and expand stories
    • 5 minutes: recap
  • Share deliverables with client the day before the meeting, not at it
  • Focus on the week ahead, not the past

Example Iteration Planning Progress Chart

Don't check yes until you have data (story, sketch, ...) in hand/on paper/online.

Thanks to Hakim El Hattab for RevealJS