Estimating, Planning and User Stories
This two-day training workshop teaches your Agile team members (including the delivery team and product owner) how to turn user and stakeholder input into value-oriented stories, sized to be delivered within an iteration. Through hands-on exercises, you will learn to use relative sizing to create meaningful and valuable release backlogs and capacity planning to ensure attainable iteration commitments.
Advantages
This workshop is right for you if your team:
- Has struggled to meet iteration commitments, or does so only while technical debt rises
- Has run for several or even dozens of iterations and yet velocity still fluctuates wildly
- Struggles to write user stories from the point of view of users and stakeholders
- Lacks clarity on how to declare a story "ready", "done", and "accepted"
- Struggles to break stories down small enough to be designed, coded, and tested within an iteration
Approach
The ideal solution to these problems is to provide focused training on user stories and other backlog artifacts, on sizing and estimating stories, and on planning iterations and releases so the product owner and team can deliver value predictably.
Upon completion of this service, a team will be able to:
- Collaborate on a clear, value-based backlog, with a shared understanding of the functionality to be delivered
- Use relative sizing to plan reasonable and valuable releases, setting up better decision-making throughout execution
- Use appropriately sized stories, a clear definition of done, and capacity planning to make and meet iteration commitments
- Establish a steady velocity, enabling predictable release plans
Approach:
As with all Rally training courses, this two-day workshop uses instruction, real-world examples, discussion, and hands-on exercises to help attendees understand the concepts as well as the skills.
Agendas are subject to change and can be adjusted based on the requirements of the specific group.
Sample Agenda:
- Prepare user stories for implementation
- Apply solid practices when estimating
- Build release (or mid-range) plans
- Plan iterations
On-Site Service Details
Here is an overview of what you and your coach can accomplish:
Prepare user stories for implementation
- Derive and elucidate user stories
- Recognize the attributes of a good user story
- Derive meaningful conditions of acceptance
- Decompose user stories effectively
- Identify appropriately sized stories
Apply solid practices when estimating
- Apply relative sizing techniques
- Predict likely progress using relative sizes and historic performance
- Identify when to re-estimate
Build release (or mid-range) plans
- Construct the Product Backlog
- Assess the appropriate time for release planning
- Facilitate effective release planning meetings
- Construct meaningful release backlogs
- Relate release contents to the product vision
Plan iterations
- Prepare team's definition of ready
- Prepare team's definition of done
- Apply appropriate commitment approaches
- Groom the Product Backlog
Price
- $13,900 plus travel and expenses
Availability
The Estimating, Planning & User Stories offering is available as a two-day engagement delivered on-site with a maximum of 25 participants. Contact your Rally account representative at sales@rallydev.com to schedule. Complete this form and a Rally Representative will follow-up with you shortly.
