Agile Estimating and Planning

The book is exceptionally well written. People have said that a book about anything 'Agile' should be thin - well this one is - There are about 24 chapters and each one is no more than easily digestible 20-30 pages for a quick 'agile' read. However, that does make it about 300 pages of content. But here are the 'Great' things about the book: - Well written and a light read with real pearls of wisdom - Well explained concepts with examples - Good primer on Estimation - separating 'duration' from the size and showing how/why it really matters in the long run (of the project) - Explaining when to estimate and a good 'tutorial' on planning poker and Kano Analysis for prioritizing features/desirability. - Throws light on the 'Financial Prioritization' - rubbishing the claim that features in agile teams are prioritized as per the whims and fancies of the developers. - Break downs about planning at multiple levels and what details go in them - Monitoring and communicating plans - the 'how' and 'what' to do I keep referring to the book - because it's really NOT about planning & estimating 'agile projects' - it's about how to be agile with the planning/estimating activity itself. You could use a lot of ideas (especially Kano Analysis, Planning Poker etc.,) and augment it with the approach in your organization (or your own planning exercise) to help communicate the plans/ideas more effectively. Do keep in mind, however - this is NOT a silver bullet that'd end the planning woes encountered in today's software development projects. The case study in the end is too idealistic where everybody is just 'willing' to participate and do it perfectly in lock step synchrony! (It's really difficult to find such software developers in the real world). However, the intent of the case study is to elucidate the concepts covered in the book and hence is a good summary of the ideas presented. There is nothing in the book that says what to do if the client doesn't know what he/she wants? IKIWISI = I'll know it when I'll see it - It doesn't cover anything about prototyping to get the requirements/user stories - it probably assumes that you can get them elicited with ease and moves on from there. In my opinion/experience there is a great deal of concurrency/backtracking with the initial prototyping and eliciting the user stories - an iterative exercise. Once you do those you are probably a bit better off with being able to 'guestimate' the story points. Kano Analysis has known to be around for quite a while and I was aware of it's use in KJ analysis (VOC+ KJ + Kano + Conjoint analysis that is part of the 6-sigma process) - however, it was a refreshing thought to be useful for just about every software product and it could be done without much overhead (actually the overhead is there, however, if the planning is done as a team, it'd be lighter :) Creating the questionnaire for Kano analysis itself takes some time/effort - but is easier once the stories are there. But 'shortening' it to be an 'agile' questionnaire DOES take time/effort. More so based on the feedback you get you may want to update it! But it's worth knowing and probably considering during the planning and user-story elicitation - just before prioritizing! All in all a great read with REAL practical and workable advice/knowledge!

The book is well structured and easy to read. In my humble opinion, it comes with a strong "buy" rating for any Agile practitioner or a current PMI certified person who wants to contribute to the knowledge economy of ever changing requirements. The book is right sized (finish in a coast to coast trip in US). Practical in its content, it provides lots of examples and case studies, from software as well as non software fields to illustrate the concepts. The detailed case study at the end of the book is invaluable. Several chapters were much thought provoking, specially how to handle team dynamics and cross team estimation. The book did not right fully delve into any details of that, it's a topic for another time. Part I of the books sets up the context. Part II details on estimating the size, and the techniques and tools for doing that; in fact it comes with some simple tools, which can be really customized and expanded quickly. Part III caters to what I call "value add planning" planning the work by prioritizing by business value, The books touches the concepts of financial project analysis, however there are better books for that, and the author provides the references. Part IV brings in the concept of time, and the handling of "estimating for effort" and estimating for duration" is simply superb. Also an entire chapter is dedicated to Buffering and its need and for multi-team projects. Part V presents tools and motivations for monitoring and communicating. Part VI presents why Agile Planning works, and honestly I skipped it, expect the guidelines ( Page 254) which I read to validate my knowledge. If there is one thing that I would change in the book, it would be the story point example with dogs. It would be a little confusing if you have no idea how a Great Dane would be different from a Duchshund! But hey, I think the book gets the message across very well. What I would like to see in the second edition-- softcopy of some tools that goes with the book, may be some templates that can be customized...but then again, you should not be in this business unless you are able to cook these tools up yourself !!

A good purchase for anyone new to the discipline or looking to refresh or get back on track.

É uma a leitura bastante agradável e didática. Entretanto, se você achava que não precisava de gestão de projetos é um soco no estômago. Não que seja adotado um modelo de gestão de projetos tradicional, mas, no meu entender, nos desilude quanto o tempo necessário para acompanhar o projeto. É um overhead muito grande de trabalho para gerir/acompanhar o projeto. Quando se imaginava que não precisaria de um nível de gestão de projetos tão grande. São atividades conhecidas no Scrum (burndown, por exemplo), mas feito tanto para a sprint quanto para a release ou até mesmo todo o projeto. Eu imagino uma sobrecarga muito grande para o Product Owner. Acaba sobrado pra ele, no meu entender. Enfim, o livro é muito bom e deve ser lido mais de uma vez para aceitar certas orientações. Se já leram e conhecem outro livro melhor neste assunto, não esqueçam de recomendar!

At last, a pragmatic and insightful book on Agile Planning

One only has to read all the comments from the leaders of agile thinking to know that this is an excellent book. It's definitely in my top 10, probably in my top 5 list of essential 'agile' reading. This book takes the agilist into areas often neglected; those topics traditionally dealt with by the Business Analyst; the person who shapes the product being produced, who has his finger on the pulse with respect to value and desirability of all the possible features that may be incorporated in a product; the person who knows which products should be prioritised for development. It brings to this person a toolbox of modern techniques that allow him to interact with a modern product development team. With a good few years experience in BA-like roles, this book taught me quite a few things that I should already have known but did not. However, this book is not just for BAs and their ilk; as other reviewers have stated, it is also very instructive for developers and project managers. Mike's style is very accessible without skimping on technical detail; this is a reasonably easy read for those who do cover-to-cover, and also a great book for those who want a desktop reference.

Very good and comprehensive book to learn in depth on Agile Estimation and planning