Agile Product Backlog Management

Silvana Wasitova, CSM, CSP, CSPO, PMP, ACP

Bucharest, November 2013

Why do these companies use Agile Methods?

About me

Waterfall

Agile

Scrum Framework

Scrum : Summary

Product Owner

Team

Scrum Master

Product Planning Sprint Planning Daily ScrumSprint ReviewRetrospective

Product BacklogSprint BacklogPotentialy

Shippable Product

Burn-down Chart

Roles(Who)

Practices(How)

Artifacts(What)

Cardinal Rule: Work on the highest priority item first

Product Owner

Define features of the product Decide on release date and content Responsible for product profitability / ROI Prioritize features according to market value Adjust features and priority every iteration,

as needed  Accept or reject work results

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Cost of Delay

Market

Opportunity

Demand

The Product The Backlog

Stakeholders

Users

Risk Management

Cost of Delay

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmhkim/4192236972

Cost of Delay

http://www.webbizideas.com/tutorials/local-seo/content-ideas-answers.html

3.4 billion pageviews in 1 month

Rolland Garros

February

Yahoo-Eurosport: 2008 Event Schedule

January April May JuneMarch

Rugby 6 Nations Wimbledon

TDF

EuroParis-Dakar Tour de France

Moto GPGolf, Athletics, CyclingBasketball

BoxingHorse RacingHockey, etc

FOOT: Olympic Games qualifiers World Cup qualifiers

Apr 12, 202317 Year long project, 2-wk sprints

Managing the Product Backlog

Initial

R1

R2

R3

Ready

R3

S1

S2

S3

S4

R2

Refined

R1

R2

R3

End of S1

R3

S2

S3

S4

R2

Scope Management

Example - Release Plan – initial version

Apr 12, 2023

Sprint 1 Sprint 6Sprint 2 Sprint 5Sprint 4Sprint 3

Mega Menu

Top Nav

Bottom Nav

Left Nav

version

People Picker

VSTTop RightNav

Test Env’t

Left Nav

Global Nav(Toolbar)

Bottom Nav

Bread-crumbs

Authoring,ContentMgmt

Search

Portal Integration

Wizzard

CommsPanelPart 1

CommsPanelPart 3

CommsPanelPart 2

MAT

NewsRollup

Ongoing activities: update taxonomy

VST Feedback

MAT Feedback

Sprint 7

Prep forCutover

PlannedGo Live

ActualGo Live

Sprint 8

© Silvana Wasitova

Scrum vs. Waterfall: Time To Market

Develop & QASpec

Develop & QASpec

Scrum

Waterfall

12 weeks 3-6 wksy wks

9 weeks

3 months

6-10 months

CollaborativeResults-Oriented

3 MONTHS

x wks

Updates

Sequential Process-Oriented

6-10 MONTHS

Faster Time to Market Higher Quality Satisfied Customer

Budget & ROI

Delivering Business Value

23

Bu

sin

ess

Valu

e

Scrum

Timedeliver business value in ea iteration: Dev, QA, docs, integration test

Sprint 1

Sprint 2

Sprint 3

Sprint 4

Sprint 5

deliver business value all at once

Scope Definition Develop DeploySpecsQA

Regression

Waterfall

ROI

ROI

64% implemented features are rarely or never used

Ref: Jim Johnson, Chairman of Standish Group, quoted in 2006 in: http://www.infoq.com/articles/Interview-Johnson-Standish-CHAOSSample: government and commercial organizations, no vendors, suppliers or consultants

Rarely19%

Never45%

Always7%

Often13%

Sometimes16%

http://webwhiteboard.com

Release Planning

26

• Projects may have multiple Releases (optional)• Each release likely has multiple Sprints• Stories are started and completed in one Sprint• Stories are executed based on value and priority

User Story Map

Required

Important

Optional

Essential

“Backbone and skeleton”Identify the “Minimal viable product”

• Specifications will never be fully understoodZiv’s Law:

• The user will never be sure of what they want until they see the system in production (if then)

Humphrey’s Law:

• An interactive system can never be fully specified, nor can it ever be fully tested

Wegner’s Lemma:

• Software evolves more rapidly as it approaches chaotic regions (without spilling into chaos)

Langdon’s Lemma:

Agile deals with 28

http://www.flickr.com/photos/janex/38847936

Agile Philosophy

Adapt to changing requirements throughout dev. cycle Stress collaboration between developers and

customers Early product delivery Strip-off non-essential activities & artifacts Transparency: daily standup Regular reviews with Client/Product Owner Continuous improvement via Retrospectives

2012 survey, 4000+ respondents

Top Three Reasons

Accelerate time to market

Manage changing priorities

Better align IT & business objectives

2012 survey, 4000+ respondents

Silvana Wasitova, PMP, ACP, CSM, CSP, CSPO

wasitova@yahoo.com+41 79 558 05 09

slideshare.com/wasitova

References http://scrum.jeffsutherland.com http://scrum.jeffsutherland.com/2013/10/what-heck-is-business-value-anyway

s.html http://www.scrumalliance.org/ http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com

http://www.agilealliance.org

Speed of Change: http://blog.jackvinson.com/archives/2010/12/31/resilience_-_managing_at_the_speed_of_change.html

Scrum Origins Jeff Sutherland

• Initial scrums at Easel Corp in 1993

• IDX and 500+ people doing Scrum

Ken Schwaber• Co-presented Scrum at OOPSLA 96

with Sutherland

• Author of three books on Scrum

Mike Beedle• Scrum patterns in PLOPD4

Ken Schwaber and Mike Cohn• Co-founded Scrum Alliance in 2002,

initially within the Agile Alliance

36

Agile & PMBOK

Agile processes reflect PMBOK process groups: Initiating, Plan, Execute, Monitor/Control, Close

In each iteration:

• Plan, Execute, Monitor, Control

• Scope, time, cost and quality management

Reading List• Agile Project Management with Scrum by Ken Schwaber

• Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn

• Agile Retrospectives by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen

• Agile Software Development with Scrum by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle

• Scrum and The Enterprise by Ken Schwaber

• Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager’s Guide by Craig Larman

• User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development by Mike Cohn

Sites:

• ScrumAlliance.org

• JeffSutherland.com