Agile Estimating & Planning Training

Professional Training from Experts in the Field

One of the most important aspects of agile development training is estimating and planning. Yes, these are important, even for agile software development. Although agile is a fluid and iterative process, that doesn’t mean that planning doesn’t have a place in its programming and project management.

Mountain Goat Software’s Agile Estimating, Planning, Training and Consultation teaches individuals and teams how to use estimating and planning for effective software development.

Despite the many worthless plans that we’ve all seen—which may make us want to skip planning altogether—this Agile Estimating and Planning Training will demonstrate that it’s possible to create accurate project plans useful for programming testing—and projecting forward from 6-9 months. Our Agile Estimating and Planning Training will teach you how to create practical, useful and reliable plans for your software development projects.

If your teams view planning as something to be avoided, or your organization uses plans as something to hold against development teams, this popular estimating and planning training can help your company break both of those attitudes and cycles.

In this important Agile estimating, planning and methodology course, participants learn skills for creating useful plans that lead to reliable decision-making. Attendees leave with a solid understanding and experience of agile release and iteration planning. The course also looks at various approaches to estimating including unit-less points and ideal time. The class will present four specific techniques for deriving reliable estimates, including how to use the popular Planning Poker® technique and other techniques that dramatically improve a project's chances of on-time completion.

By using this approach to estimating, teams learn to answer the ever-challenging questions that plague every development team: “When will we be done?” and “How soon can we have all of these features?”

Upcoming Public Training Classes

Date	Location	Taught By	Price
Aug 6, 2009	Boulder	Mike Cohn	$550 through 7/7; $650 thereafter
Dec 3, 2009	London	Mike Cohn	£700 + VAT

Onsite Availability

Don’t see a date and location for Agile Estimating and Planning that you like? Want to train a team or department without the hassle of travel? This course is available for onsite delivery. Contact Mike Cohn at (720) 890-6110 or by e-mail at mike@mountaingoatsoftware.com.

PMPs: This course counts for 8 Professional Development Units (PDUs).

Participants Will Learn

Agile Estimating and Planning Participants Will Learn:

How to create an accurate and useful project plan
The importance of estimating size and deriving duration
The differences between story points and ideal time
The advantages of an abstract measure of size
Techniques for creating estimates
When and how to re-estimate
How and when to perform release and iteration planning
Tips for communicating about estimates and plans

Who Should Attend

This course is equally suited for managers, programmers, testers, or anyone involved in estimating or planning a software development project. Participants will return to their jobs with specific recommendations and actions they can perform to improve their current plans and projects.

Agile Estimating and Planning Trainer—Mike Cohn

Learn Scrum and Agile Processes directly from Mike Cohn, one of the industry’s most well-respected Certified Scrum Trainers®, and a well-known author of two books on the subject of agile development (including Agile Estimating and Planning). Mike is a highly popular and in-demand Scrum and agile trainer across the globe. He is also a co-founder and former board member of the Scrum Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated specifically to Scrum, and a co-founder of the non-profit Agile Alliance, home of the Agile Manifesto.

All Mountain Goat Software's agile estimating and planning training and consultations are conducted by Mike Cohn himself. To get a sense of Mike’s style, watch this sample of Mike’s presentation at Google, or read feedback from others on What They’re Saying About Us. Also, take a look at our client list.

For more information about Mountain Goat Software, Mike Cohn, and why to choose us for your agile estimating and planning training, please visit Why Mountain Goat? or view a complete list of our public agile and Scrum courses.

Agile Estimating and Planning – The Book

Agile Estimating and Planning is an enormously useful guide for estimating and planning agile projects. The book guides readers through the agile estimating and planning process with step-by-step coaching and plenty of real world applications. Agile Estimating and Planning supports any agile, semi-agile, or iterative process, including Scrum, XP, Feature-Driven Development, Crystal, Adaptive Software Development, DSDM, Unified Process, and many more.

Download a PDF brochure with additional information.