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 each user story means defining
    • all changes to the screens and transitions
    • at least one concrete example with real data, input conditions, and output results
    • how this story will be user tested
  • Could easily take 15 to 20 minutes to expand one user story.

Timebox

  • Have a general agenda, e.g.,
    10 minutescollect issues with current slice to address later
    45 minutesselect and expand stories
    5 minutesread out a list of what you plan to deliver
  • Send deliverables to client the day before the meeting, not at it

Thanks to Hakim El Hattab for RevealJS