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.
PMPs: This course counts for 7.5 Professional Development Units (PDUs).
What You Get
- High quality training from an industry expert
- A hot lunch buffet and afternoon biscuits
- A printed and bound copy of the course materials
- Planning Poker® cards for use in estimating with your team
What Will You 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.
About your Instructor - Mike Cohn
Learn Scrum and Agile Processes directly from Mike Cohn, one of the industry's most well-respected Certified Scrum Trainers. Mike Cohn is the author of User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development, Agile Estimating and Planning, and Succeeding with Agile. 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.
London courses are held at the Holborn Bars location of DeVere Venues, and is set in the heart of the city mile, within one of London's most Iconic buildings. The venue is located at 138-142 Holborn, London, EC1N 2NQ. Registration for all London courses is handled through Mountain Goat Software and Mike Cohn's London partner, EMC.
What People Are Saying About This Course
“Mike’s classes at Yahoo! have been incredibly useful. I recommend him to anyone who is serious about implementing Agile in their organization.”
—Gabrielle Benefield, Yahoo!
“ You were a great instructor and you absolutely, forever altered my perspective on project management process. ”
—Ray Hutchins, SimGame Exchange
“ Awesome experience. We will be sending other team members to your classes. ”
—Misty Lowery , Edfinancial Services
“ I really enjoyed your Agile Planning and Estimating class last Thursday. It provided a ton of useful insight into some of the challenges we're experiencing with our Scrum adoption. ”
—Randy Hale, TD Ameritrade Denver
“Thank you for delivering such a valuable day last Friday. I can sincerely say that I got more from the day than any session I have attended in the last 30 years!”
—Carly Wills, Database Group Ltd.
“Your class on estimating and planning was one of the most valuable I have attended! I came home and worked on my “Planning Plan” and I am so excited to work with the team to share what I've learned and put these ideas in motion.”
—Pamela Fox, Senior Project Manager, Bridgepoint Education.