Agile planning and metrics

0:00Sara: Welcome to Project Management Exam Prep.

0:02This episode is about agile planning and metrics: planning in short cycles,

0:07and forecasting from the pace a team really achieves.

0:11Leo: You will learn the Scrum cycle, velocity and release forecasts,

0:16burn charts, and Kanban. We finish with a drill, so keep a pen and a calculator

0:20ready.

0:21Sara: Let us start with the three lenses. What does IPMA® say?

0:26Leo: IPMA®, the International Project Management Association, sets out its standard in

0:30the Individual Competence Baseline, the ICB4.

0:34It prescribes no method. Its element on time names time boxes and Kanban charts:

0:40with iterative planning, you plan only the current iteration in detail.

0:45Its finance element names velocity analysis for forecasting.

0:49Sara: And PMI®?

0:49Leo: PMI®, the Project Management Institute, publishes the PMBOK® Guide,

0:54its guide to the project management body of knowledge.

0:58The eighth edition covers adaptive and hybrid schedules, with story points,

1:03velocity, burn charts and Kanban boards.

1:07The outline of PMI®'s Project Management Professional exam, the PMP®,

1:11asks you to schedule to the chosen approach.

1:14About sixty percent of its questions involve agile or hybrid work.

1:18Sara: And APM?

1:20Leo: APM, the Association for Project Management, publishes the APM Body of Knowledge.

1:26In iterative work, timeboxes fix time and cost, while scope and quality flex,

1:32and burndown charts track completion. The syllabus of APM's Project Management Qualification,

1:38the PMQ, asks how linear, iterative and hybrid life cycles differ,

1:43and how resources are planned in each.

1:45Sara: Where do the words differ?

1:48Leo: In two places. First, the fixed period of work.

1:51Scrum says sprint. PMI® says iteration, or sprint.

1:56APM and the ICB4 say timebox. Here, we say sprint.

2:01Sara: Second?

2:02Leo: Flow times. PMI® separates lead time, from when an item joins the board until delivery,

2:09and cycle time, from the start of work to its end.

2:13The others do not define them, so say which you mean.

2:16Sara: What is the core, whichever exam you take?

2:19Leo: Three ideas. One: plan in layers. A vision, a release plan for a few months,

2:26and detail for the next sprint only. The backlog, the ordered list of work,

2:31is detailed at the top and rough below.

2:34Sara: Two?

2:35Leo: Scrum is a widely used frame for that rhythm.

2:38Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland set it out in the Scrum Guide,

2:42free under a Creative Commons licence. In our own words, the product owner orders

2:46the backlog for value. The developers turn items into a usable increment every sprint.

2:52The scrum master helps the team use Scrum well, and gets obstacles removed.

2:57None is called project manager.

2:59Sara: And the cycle?

3:01Leo: A sprint lasts one month or less. Sprint planning sets a sprint goal.

3:07A daily scrum of fifteen minutes checks progress towards it.

3:11The review shows the increment to stakeholders, and the retrospective improves how

3:16the team works. The artefacts are the product backlog, the sprint backlog and the

3:22increment. An item counts only when it meets the definition of done,

3:27the checklist finished items must pass.

3:30Sara: And three?

3:31Leo: Forecast from finished work. Linear work tracks progress against a baseline schedule.

3:38Iterative work often fixes the dates and the team, and asks how much scope will

3:43fit.

3:44Sara: How do you measure the pace?

3:46Leo: Velocity: the story points of accepted work a team finishes in one sprint.

3:51A story point is a relative size the team agrees, not hours.

3:55It is a forecast, never a target, and it belongs to one team,

3:59because each team sizes its own points.

4:02Sara: The model sheet, free in the description, draws a burndown chart.

4:07Leo: It plots the work left after each sprint against an ideal line,

4:11straight from the total to zero. Take a release of two hundred points in eight sprints:

4:17the ideal line falls by twenty-five a sprint.

4:20After four sprints, one hundred and twenty points are left, where the ideal line

4:24is at one hundred. Above the line is behind: twenty points behind.

4:30Sara: When will it finish?

4:32Leo: Give a range. The recent sprints finished twenty, twenty-four and twenty-two points.

4:37At twenty-four a sprint, the rest takes five sprints.

4:40At twenty, it takes six. The plan has four left, so the release ends one or two

4:46sprints late. Holding the date would need one hundred and twenty over four:

4:51thirty a sprint. Say so, and bring options.

4:54Sara: And a burnup chart?

4:56Leo: It draws the work done, rising, and the total scope above it.

5:00When scope grows, the top line steps up.

5:02On a burndown, added scope can look like a slow team.

5:06Sara: And when the work does not fit sprints?

5:08Leo: Then Kanban, set out for knowledge work by David J.

5:13Anderson in two thousand and ten. Work flows across a board, without sprints.

5:18Make all the work visible, one card per item.

5:21Limit the work in progress in each column.

5:24And manage the flow: when a column is full, people help finish before starting more.

5:30Sara: How do you measure flow?

5:32Leo: Cycle time is how long an item takes from start to finish.

5:36Throughput is how many items finish each week.

5:40John Little's law, from nineteen sixty-one, links them.

5:43In a steady system, the average cycle time is the work in progress divided by the

5:48throughput. Twelve items in progress with four finished a week take three weeks

5:53each. Limit the work in progress to eight.

5:56If four still finish a week, each takes two weeks.

6:00Sara: And hybrid use?

6:02Leo: A hybrid can mix all three: milestones on top, features built in sprints,

6:07and fixes on a Kanban board. The forecasts from below feed the dates above.

6:13Sara: How does this change between Mid-level and Senior?

6:17Leo: First, the two levels. They are this series' own labels.

6:22Mid-level means leading moderately complex projects, the level of IPMA® Level C and

6:28PMI®'s PMP® exam. Senior means leading complex projects and people,

6:33the level of IPMA® Level B and of APM's chartered status, Chartered Project Professional.

6:40At Mid-level, you run the metrics well for one team.

6:44Take Parking Permits Online, a city project that moves resident parking permits

6:48online in eight months. A supplier builds the resident screens in two-week sprints,

6:53inside a predictive frame. The project manager, Anna, turns the burnup into a date

6:59range for the steering group every two weeks.

7:02Sara: And at Senior level?

7:03Leo: You design the measures that many teams report into.

7:07Take One City Account, a thirty-month city project that brings fourteen online services

7:12under one login, led by Anna some years later.

7:16Each team keeps its own velocity, and Anna never adds up or compares points across

7:21teams. Before each gate, the steering board sees a date range for each service,

7:26and decides what moves.

7:28Sara: Now the drill. A city team builds an online booking service for sports halls in

7:33two-week sprints. It must go live after ten sprints, when the old system's licence

7:38ends. The release began with one hundred and sixty story points.

7:43After seven sprints, one hundred and forty are done.

7:46The latest sprints finished eighteen, twenty and twenty-two.

7:50Departments have also added sixty points of requests.

7:54The sponsor asks: why is the team slow, and will it be ready?

7:58Leo: Pause and write your answer. You have forty-five seconds.

8:47Sara: First, the numbers.

8:48Leo: The scope is now two hundred and twenty, so eighty points are left.

8:54Three sprints remain. At eighteen a sprint, they hold fifty-four points.

8:58At twenty-two, sixty-six. So fourteen to twenty-six points will not fit.

9:04Sara: Is the team slow?

9:06Leo: No. The plan needed one hundred and sixty over ten: sixteen a sprint.

9:12The team averages twenty. Without the added sixty, it would finish two sprints early.

9:16The gap is scope, not speed. The shortcut: divide the work left by the velocity.

9:24Eighty over twenty is four sprints. Only three are left.

9:28It works because each sprint finishes about one velocity of work.

9:32Sara: And the answer?

9:34Leo: Show the burnup: the done line on pace, the scope line stepped up.

9:39With the product owner, fit the must-haves into the low end, fifty-four points,

9:44and move the rest to a later release. A new request now pushes out work of the same

9:48size.

9:49Sara: What lifts that to Senior?

9:52Leo: The date is fixed, so the trade is scope.

9:55Agree who may add work to a fixed-date release, and when the steering group decides.

10:02Report a range with its confidence. And protect the team: pressing for points only

10:08inflates the estimates.

10:09Sara: How do the exams ask this?

10:12Leo: IPMA®'s exams ask for open answers. IPMA®'s certification also includes an interview,

10:18where assessors ask about your own projects: note how you forecast on one.

10:23The PMP® exam uses scenarios, and questions built on a case study or a chart.

10:29APM's PMQ asks for short written answers, such as why a timebox fixes time and cost.

10:37Sara: Let us recap.

10:37Leo: One. Plan in layers, with only the next sprint in detail.

10:43Sara: Two. Scrum has three accountabilities, four events inside the sprint,

10:47and a definition of done.

10:49Leo: Three. Velocity is one team's accepted work per sprint: a forecast as a range,

10:55never a target.

10:57Sara: Four. A burnup shows whether a gap is speed or scope.

11:02Leo: Five. Kanban limits work in progress. By Little's law, less work in progress means

11:08shorter waits.

11:10Sara: The model sheets and the study handout are in the description.

11:14This was the last episode.

11:16Leo: Next: back to the start with the introduction, whose study paths show the episodes

11:20for your exam.