From the course: Project Management Foundations

Plan an iteration

From the course: Project Management Foundations

Plan an iteration

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- [Instructor] With an Agile project, you still plan things before you dive into the work. The speculate stage is when the business and technical teams identify the features to include in the current iteration. A feature is a small function or deliverable that addresses a business need. In the hospital project, scheduling functions, user documentation, and training could be features. The typical naming convention is action followed by result. For example, find next available appointment time, or change procedure room. The first iteration speculate stage takes a little longer than the following ones. That's because you have to identify and estimate all the features for the project, which is called the backlog. One way to build the backlog is to write each feature on a sticky note or index card. If your organization uses an agile collaboration tool, you can add features there. When the feature list is complete, the business and technical teams review the features and prioritize them. The business team prioritizes from a functionality perspective. The technical team considers whether it makes more sense to build features in a specific order. Don't worry if the business folks identify new features or ask questions about existing ones. The agile approach can take that in stride. Worst case, if the list gets really long, you can talk about features to push to a future project. The business and technical team members also work together to develop estimates for all features in the project. Once the prioritized feature list is approved by the customer or sponsor, you can create the iteration, milestone and release plan. This plan outlines all the features, when they're scheduled in the iterations, and when they'll be implemented in the organization. And you're ready to start the explore stage of the first iteration. Time passes and like any project, an Agile project doesn't necessarily follow your plan. Each time you start another speculate stage, you have to re-estimate, reevaluate, and reprioritize the features to decide which ones to include in the iteration. Like features that weren't completed and are now back in the backlog, or new features that were identified since the original backlog was built. And the next features in the backlog that you want to include. The speculate stage doesn't take long. If your iterations are three weeks long, you might spend a couple of days in the speculate stage. You start each iteration by planning what will be done. For practice, use the backlog in the exercise files to build a plan for the next iteration.

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