Agile Planning and Estimation (Alan Atlas with Steven Mak)

The goals of this tutorial are:

1. Achieve in-depth understanding of two major estimation techniques: Planning Poker and Affinity Estimation
2. Explore alternatives to traditional sprint planning and velocity measurements for Agile Product Planning
3. Identify techniques for Agile Planning that do not require estimation

Ever since Mike Cohn published his book "Agile Estimation and Planning" in 2005 there have been many thousands of teams and sprints. The state of the art and the repertoire of successful practices has grown so to be too large to be treated in any depth during traditional Agile team training or Certified Scrum Master training. This tutorial will explore the newer philosophies and techniques in the area of planning through the use of classroom lecture, discussion, and exercises. Techniques such as Affinity Estimation and No Estimation will be explored. A model for understanding user story estimation and what it really means will be explored. Finally, the class will experiment with techniques for planning and prediction that do not depend on estimation at all. At the end of the tutorial, participatnts will be able to offer their teams some new alternatives to the traditional sprint-planning-task-estimation-capacity-planning methods we all began with.

This tutorial is of interest to Scrum practitioners of all levels, but especially Scrum Masters, coaches, and experienced Scrum team members.