Accurate Agile Planning
Plan with Confidence. Deliver with Clarity.
This course helps you determine how much can be delivered by when. It covers fixed-date, fixed-scope, and fixed-everything projects and will give you the skills to create accurate plans 3, 6, or 12 months into the future.
- Plan complex projects including those that require deliverables by specific dates.
- Communicate plans to stakeholders including the need for accuracy rather than precision
- Manage backlog items that have the greatest uncertainty to reduce project risk.
What You'll Be Able to Do
Apply story points, planning poker and affinity estimating to achieve meaningful forecasts.
Estimate those unknowns: how to handle large, uncertain backlogs and emerging work.
Communicate plans clearly to stakeholders: explain story points, justify estimates and answer tough questions.
Why Choose Accurate Agile Planning
Many agile teams struggle to answer “how much by when?” This course shows you how to create plans you can confidently share with stakeholders.
After this course you’ll be able to split, estimate and prioritise backlog items, ensure your forecasts align with business goals, and explain your thinking clearly to non-technical audiences. By the end of the day you’ll have the tools to turn complexity into clarity, and uncertainty into actionable plans.
A Unique, Interactive Learning Experience
Team Home is a collaboration platform that we designed for our courses. It is optimized for live, online training. Participants benefit by collaborating in ways beyond what is possible with generic whiteboard software such as Mural or Miro. Instructors can observe activity across all rooms, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of exercise debriefs.
Access Our Resources, Planning Poker® and AI Toolkit
Expanded access to MGS Essentials, included with your trainining, is your toolkit for doing agile better, with resources that help you and your team move faster, plan smarter, and deliver more value.
Access live events, video lectures, and a powerful set of tools including online Planning Poker®, the Elements of Agile assessment and AI tools for coaching, story splitting and backlog item generation.
Upcoming Public Training
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with Lance Dacy | – | $599 | Register |
Course Includes:
Certification Credits
Course Outline
What Is Agile Planning?
- Good Plans Lead to the Right Decisions
- Why Estimating in Person-Days Does Not Work
Estimating with Story Points
- What Story Points Are
- Using an Appropriate Scale
- Five Types of Estimates and Which Works
- Planning Poker and Affinity Estimating
Milestone (Release) Planning
- Fixed-Date Plans
- Fixed-Scope Plans
- Fixed-Everything Plans
- Estimating Velocity
- Estimating Velocity Without Data (or Even a Team)
Planning for What You Don’t Know
- Why Your Product Backlog Is Bigger than You Think
- Estimating the Unknown Backlog
Buffering Critical Plans
- Don’t Pad a Plan but Buffer What Matters
- Why Two Estimates Are Better (and Faster) than One
- Measuring Risk
- Creating the Buffered Plan
Getting Faster and Better at Estimating
- Seven Things to Do to Get Better, Faster Estimates
- Four Things to Stop Doing
Communicating about Estimates and Plans
- Explaining Story Points
- Explaining What Makes a Good Estimate or Plan
- Answering Questions about the Plan
Your Mountain Goat Instructors
Mountain Goat has handpicked instructors that share our training values. These are people with deep experience, who are leading teams with agile today and can give you real-world answers about what does and doesn’t work.
Mike Cohn
With 20+ years of agile training experience, Mike has honed a talent for explaining agile concepts with clear illustrations and real-life examples. Participants enjoy his passion for teaching the agile methodologies in a relatable and digestible way.
Read more...Mike is CEO of Mountain Goat Software, and one of the industry’s most well-respected Certified Scrum Trainers. He is the author of User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development, Agile Estimating and Planning, and Succeeding with Agile. He is a co-founder and former board member of the Scrum Alliance, and a co-founder of the non-profit Agile Alliance, home of the Agile Manifesto.
Scrum Certifications include: CSM, CST, CSPO, A-CSM, CSP-SM, CSP-PO
Lance Dacy
As a Certified Scrum Trainer, Lance has trained and coached teams through many successful Scrum implementations since 2011, from Fortune 20 companies to small start-ups. Lance is also experienced in showing agile coaches and managers how to help cross functional, self-organizing teams deliver high value for customers as early as possible by using Scrum.
Read more...Lance is a true evangelist for Scrum, having founded the successful DFW Scrum User Group in Dallas as an outlet for professional networking and a community sounding-board for Scrum. He has a fun and generous personality, and shares his passion for Scrum in every course.
Scrum Certifications include: CSM, CST, CSPO, CAL-1, A-CSM, A-CSPO, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, Path to CSP Educator, Scrum Foundations Educator.
Brian Milner
Starting out as a developer, Brian worked up through management layers, then transitioned to Scrum Master, then Coach and now Certified Scrum Trainer. His practical experience in both waterfall and agile organizations helps him clarify what works and what doesn’t, plus he has many years’ experience helping teams transition to agile.
Read more...Brian also brings more than 20 years of software development experience to his classes. People remark on his ability to answer even tough questions with ease, enthusiasm, and insight.
Scrum Certifications include: CSM, CST, CSPO, CAL-Educator, CAL-1, A-CSM, A-CSPO, CSP-CM, CSP-PO, Path to CSP Educator, Scrum Foundations Educator.
Scott Dunn
Scott Dunn has more than 20 years of experience in management, project management (PMP), engagement management, and software development (MCSD). He’s worked in a variety of areas and industries from social media to mortgage banking, healthcare, defense, e-commerce, plus state and local government sectors.
Read more...He has helped coach and train at dozens of companies transitioning to an agile approach using Scrum. Clients have included EMC/Dell Technologies, Yahoo!, LaserFiche, Kaiser Permanente, Rovi/Tivo, eBay, and GE Healthcare.
Scott is passionate about strengths-based teams and solutions-based approaches to people and organizational issues. He is an enthusiastic and encouraging trainer.
Scrum Certifications include: CSM, CST, CSD, CSPO, CEC, Educator-CAL, CAL-1, CAL, A-CSM, A-CSD, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSP-D, Path to CSP Educator, CSD Educator, Scrum Foundations Educator.
Lucy O’Keefe
Lucy has been a developer, Product Owner and Scrum Master in many scrum teams during her 28 years of IT experience. This brings a valuable perspective to the Teaching Assistant role as she helps students have a great training experience.
Read more...“I just love it when I see the light bulb go off during a class and know that the student really gets it.”
Lucy also brings a rich travel experience to her role. She is originally from Brazil, lived in Italy during high school and then came to the US for college—where she lived in the same dorm as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson! These days she resides in Charlotte, NC with her two wonderful dogs Chloe and Ollie.
Cort Sharp
Cort has degrees in physics and computer science, as well as experience coding and QA testing. If you’ve taken a live, online course with us you may have seen Cort in his producer’s role, making sure things run smoothly and students have a great experience. He also acts as Scrum Master for the team of producers, making sure that they have the support needed to do their work with confidence.
Read more...“It’s awesome being able to end a 2-day class with people shocked at how quickly it went by and how engaging and fun it was.”
In addition to his love for agile, Cort is also a serious swimmer and has been coaching swimmers for 5 years. He once met Michael Phelps and a wingspan comparison ensued. Cort’s was longer, but it is believed Phelps was gracious about the defeat and no longer holds it against Cort.
Got a Question?
What happens when you contact us?
- We’ll get back to you within a day.
- Answer your training questions and discuss any custom needs.
- Recommend the best agile training path for your teams and goals.
- Want to talk to someone? Schedule a call.