Accurate Agile Planning
Answer “How Much By When?” With A Credible Plan
A private, one-day workshop for teams and leaders who need defensible delivery forecasts—without pretending uncertainty away. Live online or in person and tailored to your planning challenges.
Private team training 30 minutes No preparation required
Chosen by companies in SaaS, Healthcare, Government, Consulting, Financial Services, Retail, Energy, and more.
Planning That Creates False Confidence
- Teams struggle to answer “When will it be done?”
- Delivery dates regularly slip
- Stakeholders expect unrealistic precision from estimates
- Teams are uncomfortable planning beyond the next sprint
- Forecasts are viewed with skepticism
- Planning conversations become tense, repetitive, or overly focused on defending dates
Planning That Supports Better Decisions
- Create credible forecasts for fixed-date, fixed-scope, and mixed-constraint work
- Communicate plans using accuracy rather than false precision
- Estimate more consistently without long, unproductive debates
- Make uncertainty visible before it becomes expensive
- Improve conversations about scope, timing, risk, and tradeoffs
- Help stakeholders understand what is likely, what is uncertain, and what decisions need to be made
From Debating Dates To Making Better Decisions
“Before the workshop, every release forecast for our mid-size platform team turned into a debate about dates. Afterward, our teams communicated assumptions and ranges instead of false precision, and leaders started making scope tradeoffs earlier—while there was still room to act on them. By our next planning cycle, risks were visible well before they threatened the delivery date.”
— Maciek, VP of Engineering
What Teams Will Be Able To Do
Create Credible Delivery Forecasts — Answer “how much by when” with defensible reasoning based on estimates, known work, uncertainty, and delivery assumptions.
Estimate Quickly And Consistently — Use story points effectively without turning estimation into a long debate about false precision.
Account For Unknown Work — Recognize overlooked, emergent, and uncertain work so plans are not built only around what is already visible.
Plan Under Real Constraints — Build useful plans for fixed-date, fixed-scope, and mixed-constraint situations.
Communicate Tradeoffs Clearly — Help stakeholders understand what is possible, what is uncertain, and where decisions about scope, timing, or risk need to be made.
How The Workshop Works
Accurate Agile Planning is a practical, exercise-driven workshop. Participants learn a shared planning approach through instructor-led examples, discussion, and hands-on scenarios.
They practice estimating, accounting for unknown work, building forecasts under real constraints, and explaining tradeoffs without turning forecasts into promises.
- Private workshop for teams and organizations
- Typically delivered in one day
- Live online or in person
- Configured around your planning challenges
- Useful for teams, product owners, Scrum Masters, leaders, and stakeholders
- Optional post-workshop support with your backlog, delivery history, and forecasts
Workshop Outline
- What agile planning is for
- Estimating with story points
- Milestone and release planning
- Planning for what you do not know
- Buffering critical plans
- Getting faster and better at estimating
- Communicating about estimates and plans
What Participants Take Back To Work
The workshop gives participants a practical foundation they can continue applying after the session:
- A shared approach to estimation and forecasting
- Practical ways to plan fixed-date and fixed-scope work while accounting for unknowns
- Language for explaining forecasts and tradeoffs to stakeholders
- Continued access to Planning Poker®, Plan Visualizer, the MGS AI Toolkit, and supporting resources
Agile Planning Guidance Shaped By Decades Of Experience
This workshop is grounded in the experience behind Agile Estimating And Planning, Mike Cohn’s widely used book on estimating, forecasting, release planning, and planning under uncertainty.
Mountain Goat Software has spent more than 25 years helping teams and organizations improve how they estimate, forecast, and plan in real-world conditions across industries, team types, and organizational cultures.
When you learn agile planning with Mountain Goat, you learn from practitioners who have worked directly with teams to create more credible forecasts, improve estimation conversations, and answer “how much by when” with more confidence.
What Participants Say
Participants describe a practical, engaging workshop that gives them useful ways to improve planning conversations with their teams.Frequently Asked Questions
Is this workshop mostly about story points?
Story points are part of the workshop, but the larger goal is better planning. Teams learn how to use estimates, forecasts, and uncertainty to make better decisions about scope, timing, risk, and tradeoffs.
Can this help us forecast more than one sprint ahead?
Yes. The workshop is designed to help teams plan beyond the next sprint, including fixed-date, fixed-scope, and mixed-constraint situations.
Should stakeholders or leaders attend?
Often, yes. Planning problems are rarely only team problems. Stakeholders and leaders who rely on forecasts benefit from understanding how uncertainty, assumptions, and tradeoffs affect delivery expectations.
Will we work with our own backlog or delivery history?
The workshop uses practical examples and planning scenarios to teach the core techniques. Optional post-workshop support can then help teams apply those techniques directly to their own backlog, delivery history, and forecasting challenges.
Can this be customized for our organization?
Yes. The workshop can be configured based on your planning challenges, team experience, delivery constraints, and the kinds of forecasting conversations your organization needs to improve.
Can this help when we already have a delivery date?
Yes. The workshop covers how to plan when a date is fixed, when scope is fixed, or when both are constrained. Teams learn how to make uncertainty visible, forecast what is realistic, and have better conversations about scope, timing, and tradeoffs.
How much does the workshop cost?
Pricing depends on factors such as delivery format, group size, facilitator, and the amount of configuration your organization needs. During the initial consultation, we’ll discuss those details and follow up with a clear recommendation and quote.
How many people can participate?
The workshop is designed for intact teams and organizations rather than individual enrollment. The best group size depends on your goals, delivery format, and how many people need to share the new planning approach. We’ll recommend a practical configuration during the initial consultation.
Who facilitates the workshop?
A Mountain Goat Software instructor with deep experience helping teams estimate, forecast, and plan under uncertainty. We’ll identify the proposed facilitator when we discuss your goals, timing, and delivery format.
What happens during the initial consultation?
The conversation takes about 30 minutes and requires no preparation. We’ll discuss your planning challenges, who should participate, whether live online or in-person delivery fits best, and whether this workshop is the right next step.
How is this different from a broader estimating and planning engagement?
Accurate Agile Planning is a structured one-day workshop that teaches a shared approach through examples and exercises. A broader estimating and planning engagement can include coaching, facilitation, and hands-on work with your actual backlog, delivery history, forecasts, and stakeholder conversations.
Ready To Plan With Greater Confidence?
Tell us where estimating, forecasting, or delivery conversations are breaking down. In 30 minutes, we’ll help you decide whether this private workshop is the right next step for your teams and leaders.