Backlog and throw your project plan away

-- reflection on Mike Cottmeyer's Agile presentation

Assumption on requirement is evil.

Backlog: As a ___, I would like to do ___ to achieve ___. The reason I highlighted this note is this is so damn true. Once I had a complaint from a customer in Italy threatening to kick our half million pounds system out - he is not satisfied. But why? He said he can't do XYZ. Okay, everybody in the loop starts to panic that why our system can't do XYZ, to do that, how long they have to wait for etc etc. Then I called him up and say hey, can I just ask one question, why would you want to do XYZ with our system? He said, "because I need to be able to have this ABC effect." I don't have to complete the rest of the story I guess.

Reverse the triangle - define time, cost first rather than scope.

Release planning is to follow the defined time, affordable cost and see what we can achieve from the backlogs (with MoSCoW applied split in backlog sets).

Short cycle time to be fixed first and then we can look at what could be done for that time. The planning efforts should not be focused on the nice good-looking Gannt chart, but on the defined Releases->Sprints, with the negotiation of backlogs in between.

SOA

"Simple, clear, purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior." -- Dee Hock