Understand how command & control release plans create false hopes and low quality products because there is no team buy-in. Learn how to develop vision and use your your vision to drive the release plan workshop. Use patterns to validate your release. Lastly you must learn from your release plan and improve the next release (inspect & adapt).

1. AGILE
RELEASE PLANNING
BY ADNAN AZIZ

2. AREAS OF LEARNING
 Typical Story of a Release
 Roadmap to Value
 Vision
 Product Roadmap
 Release Planning
 Learnings

3. TYPICAL STORY
OF A RELEASE

4. SOMEONE DEFINES THE
ROADMAP FOR YOU

5. FEATURES AND RELEASE DATE
IS SELECTED FOR YOU

6. TEAM STARTS WORK ON RELEASE

7. AHHHA WE LIVE ON PLANET EARTH
AND WORK
IN THE
SOFTWARE
INDUSTRY

8. TIME RUNS OUT
AND PRESSURE
MOUNTS

9. Drumbeats get faster, faster
……and faster

10. TEAM IS WHIPPED
UP TO RAMMING
SPEED

11. WHAT THIS
PRESSURE DOES
TO A TEAM

12. Pressure
Fatigue
More
Mistakes
More
Work
do {
.........
} while(true)

13. SUPERHEROS SAVES
THE RELEASE

14. Does this situation bring out the
best in people?

15. THIS SITUATION
DAMAGES THE
ENTHUSIASM

16. STAGES TO
ALUE

17. ROADMAP TO VALUE

18. ROADMAP TO VALUE

19. ROADMAP TO VALUE

20. ROADMAP TO VALUE

21. ROADMAP TO VALUE

22. ROADMAP TO VALUE

23. ROADMAP TO VALUE

24. ROADMAP TO VALUE

25. ISION

26. VISION
The goals of the product and its alignment with the
company’s strategy
OWNER
Product Owner
FREQUENCY
At least annually

27. OADMAP

28. PRODCUT ROADMAP
Holistic view of product features that create the product
vision
OWNER
Product Owner
FREQUENCEY
At least biannually

29. ELEASE
LANNING

30. RELEASE PLANNING
High priority features release timing for specific product
functionality
OWNER
Product Owner
FREQUENCEY
At least quarterly

31. PURPOSE
 Define and understand a goal for the release
 Define what features can be released
 Confirm the date for the release
 Have everyone in the team understand and commit to delivering
the agreed release by the agreed date

32. A PLANNING SESSION
 Features and themes are reviewed and prioritized
 Key dates and milestones are established
 Team determines roughly which features will be delivered in the
timeframe identified
 Goal is to produce a high-level release plan with delivery dates
#TIP Don’t go into too much detail, leave that to iteration planning

34. CONTINUES PLANNING
Shippable
Increment
After Every
Release
Release 4Release 3Release 2Release 1
 In agile projects we plan continuously
 Allow course correction in response to feedback

35. WHO IS INVOLVED
Product Owner
#TIP Involve any other stakeholders that can add valuable input
Developers
Testers UX
SME’s BA’s

36. IN RELEASE PLANNING MEETING
 Product owner explains the key objectives that business needs to
achieve from this release
 Product owner helps to understands the motivation behind the
release
 Based on prioritized backlog of features meaningful conversation
beings
#TIP Release planning will run more smoothly and take less time if you’re prepared

37. IN RELEASE PLANNING MEETING
 Business value is questioned to build common consensus
 Developers assess technical risks
 Rough estimates are established
 New stories are created if there are some technical unknowns
 Consensus needs to be reached on the release plan with everyone
present stating their commitment verbally
#TIP Don’t get bogged down into details, it’s important to remain focused and to
maintain a brisk pace

38. TEAM DECIDES AND TEAM COMMITS
 Team knows its throughput based on their prior experiences
 Team understands their capability to deliver the release
 Enough details are provided for team to understand the motivation
behind the release
 Team is involved in rough estimation and risk identification
conversation
 Team decides which features can be delivered and gives
commitment to the product owner
#TIP Shared goals and shared conversation create great products

39. END RESULT
Release
4
Release
3
 Team committed to release plan with clear understanding
 Build flexibility to better plan your future releases
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Product
Backlog

40. RELEASE GOTCHA’S
Release 2
Release
Planning
Release
Validation
Release 1
Release
Planning
Release
Validation
Release 3
Release
Planning
Release
Validation
 Planning and validation must be considered when planning a release
 Release validation ensures that desired outcomes are achieved

41. EARNINGS

42. DEVELOP A SHARED VISION

43. THINK ABOUT COMMON PURPOSE

44. BUILD SENSE OF SHARED OWNERSHIP

45. COMMUNICATE ‘WHY’

46. CREATE EXCITEMENT
AROUND BUSINESS
RESULTS

47. “High-quality games at a lower
cost that are as fun to develop as
they are to play”

48. Care to share your experience?
THANK YOU
www.agilehash.com
twitter.com/adnanaziz
* All images collected through Google, Flickr