Plan With Confidence, Not False Certainty
When estimates are treated as commitments and forecasts are treated as promises, planning becomes stressful for teams and frustrating for stakeholders.
We help teams use estimates, sprint plans, and forecasts to make better decisions about scope, timing, risk, and tradeoffs.
Signs Your Team May Need Support
- Work regularly carries over despite careful planning
- Teams feel pressured to provide precise dates too early
- Estimates vary significantly between team members
- Stakeholders lack confidence in forecasts
- Planning sessions take too long
- Delivery conversations become tense or repetitive
What’s Getting In The Way
Estimating and planning problems often come from different expectations about uncertainty. Teams may intend estimates to support planning, while stakeholders hear them as commitments. Forecasts may be treated as promises instead of projections based on what is currently known.
Planning conversations then focus on precision when the real need is a better decision about scope, timing, risk, or priority. Teams spend time defending estimates instead of deciding what to build, when to adjust, and which tradeoffs are worth making.
A Pattern We Often See
Estimates create the most trouble when they stop being tools for decision-making and start being treated as guarantees. The same numbers can be useful or damaging depending on how teams and stakeholders use them in planning conversations.
How We Help
We work with the team’s real backlog, delivery history, sprint plans, and forecasting challenges so planning improvements are tied to the work the team is actually doing. From there, we help teams improve the mechanics of estimating and the conversations that make estimates, forecasts, and plans useful.
Our Estimating And Planning Improvement Process
Understand
We identify where planning is breaking down and why. That may include inconsistent estimation practices, unclear backlog items, unrealistic stakeholder expectations, weak forecasting, or confusion about the difference between estimates, forecasts, and commitments.
Improve
We help teams create more useful estimates, build more credible forecasts, and have better conversations about uncertainty, risk, scope, and delivery expectations.
Apply
The team applies new techniques using its own backlog, delivery history, sprint plans, and forecasting challenges. The goal is to improve planning decisions using real work and real constraints.
Reinforce
We provide follow-through support so planning improvements continue after the initial workshop, coaching, or facilitation.
Practical Guidance Grounded In Real Experience
Mike Cohn is the author of Agile Estimating and Planning and co-founded the Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance.
Our engagements apply that experience to your team’s real backlog, planning conversations, delivery history, and stakeholder expectations—not generic classroom exercises.
Planning And Estimating, Made Clear
“Mike Cohn simplifies complex planning and estimating practices and explains them clearly. He gets back to the fundamentals, helping you understand the reasoning behind familiar tools and identify what really matters. I came away much more confident choosing the right tools to plan and estimate projects. His practical examples and relatable comparisons make complex ideas easy to understand.”
— James Van Tuyl
What Teams Often Begin To See
More Reliable Dates, Fewer Surprises
“Before working with Mountain Goat Software, our delivery dates were often guesswork dressed up as commitments, and planning conversations turned into debates. Mike helped our teams and leaders develop a shared understanding of uncertainty and use forecasts as decision-making tools rather than promises. We now meet our target dates far more reliably. When risks emerge, we see them early enough to act instead of being surprised at the deadline. Planning is clearer, and we have much greater confidence in our forecasts.”
— VP of Engineering
Possible Paths We May Recommend
You do not need to know which option is right before contacting us. We’ll help identify what is causing the problem and recommend the simplest useful next step.
Accurate Agile Planning
Best when teams need a shared approach to estimating, forecasting, and planning under uncertainty.
Leadership Alignment
Best when leaders, stakeholders, and teams need a shared understanding of planning, forecasting, uncertainty, and delivery expectations.
Agile Coaching
Best when teams, Scrum Masters, or product owners need support applying better planning practices in day-to-day work.
Team Improvement Sprints
Best when a team needs training, hands-on application, and follow-through support while improving its actual planning and forecasting practices.
Not Sure Which Path Fits?
Tell us what is making planning difficult. We’ll help identify the simplest useful next step.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this mostly about story points?
Not necessarily. Story points may be part of the conversation, but the larger goal is to help teams estimate, plan, and forecast in ways that support better decisions about scope, timing, risk, and tradeoffs.
Do you work with our actual backlog and delivery history?
Yes. We use the team’s real backlog, sprint plans, delivery history, and forecasting challenges so the work is tied to the planning decisions the team actually needs to make.
Who should be involved?
Usually the team, product owner, Scrum Master, and the leaders or stakeholders who rely on the team’s forecasts. Estimating and planning problems often involve both team practices and stakeholder expectations.
Can this help when stakeholders want firm dates?
Yes. We help teams and stakeholders have better conversations about uncertainty, assumptions, ranges, tradeoffs, and when a forecast should or should not be treated as a commitment.
Can this work be done remotely?
Yes. We can work remotely with your team using its actual backlog, planning questions, estimates, forecasts, and delivery history.
What does a typical engagement look like and how long does it take?
It depends on what is causing the problem. Some teams need a focused workshop. Others benefit from coaching or follow-through support over one or more sprints. We begin by understanding the challenge and recommend the simplest useful option.
Ready To Make Planning More Useful?
Tell us where estimates, forecasts, or delivery expectations are creating friction. We’ll help identify the simplest useful next step for your teams and stakeholders.