Agile Estimating and Planning - Dallas

Date	Jan 29, 2009	Location	Dallas
Start time	8:30 AM	Taught by	Mike Cohn
End time	16:30 PM	Price	$650

Other courses at this location in the same week
Certified ScrumMaster, Jan 27-28

Planning is important, even for agile projects. Unfortunately, we've all seen so many worthless plans that we'd like to throw planning out altogether. The good news is that it is possible to create a project plan that looks forward six to nine months that can be accurate and useful. Too many teams view planning as something to be avoided and too many organizations view plans as something to hold against their development teams.

In this session you will learn how to break that cycle by learning and practicing skills that will help create useful plans that lead to reliable decision-making. You will leave with a solid understanding of and experience at agile release planning and iteration planning. We will look at various approaches to estimating including unit-less points and ideal time. The course will describe four techniques for deriving estimates, including how to use the popular Planning Poker technique. We will look at techniques to create a plan that dramatically improves the project's chances of on-time completion.

Onsite Availability

Don’t see a date and location 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 Development Training Participants Will Learn:

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 estimating
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 project. Participants will be able to return to their jobs with specific recommendations and actions they can perform to improve their current plans and projects.

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

Your 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, a well-known author of two books on the subject of agile development (including Agile Estimating and Planning), and a highly popular and in-demand Scrum and agile trainer across the globe. Cohn 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 classes are conducted by Mike Cohn himself. To get a sense of Mike’s style as a trainer, please watch a sample of Mike’s presentation at Google. You can also read feedback from others who have attended Mountain Goat Software Agile Trainings on our What They’re Saying About Us page, and take a look at the list of some of the clients we’ve worked with.

For a printable information sheet about Mountain Goat Software’s Agile Estimating and Planning course, please download this PDF brochure.

For more information about Mountain Goat Software, Mike Cohn, and why to choose us for your agile and Scrum trainings, please visit our About Us page.

You may also see a complete list of our public agile and Scrum courses.

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

Agile Estimating and Planning – The Book

Agile Estimating and Planning is an enormously useful guide for estimating and planning agile projects. More information on the book is available on this site. 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.

Agile Estimating and Planning teaches skills that will help create useful plans. Course participants learn and practice in such a way that they leave the training with a solid understanding of agile release planning and iteration planning, as well as actual experience in these processes. This popular training for agile projects examines various approaches to estimating including unit-less story points and ideal time.

The course will also describe four techniques for deriving estimates, including how to use the popular Planning Poker technique. We will look at techniques to create a plan that dramatically improves the project's chances of on-time completion.

The Critical Questions

Two of the most important questions asked on any project are “When will we be done?” and “How soon can I have everything I've asked for?” These are not impossible questions. By taking an agile approach to estimating and planning, teams can learn how to create useful estimates that lead to reliable plans.