Scrum Release Planning

Moving to smaller, predictable, release schedules

• Review proposed approach (5 min)
• Discuss Major Challenge: Catching up un-tested Jira tickets (20 min)
• Next Steps and action items (5 min)

Agenda

Iron Triangle

5 Levels of Planning

Vision, Roadmap, Release plan, Sprint plan, Daily plan

Concerns

Large Releases, hard to nail down, lots of testing resources allocated

• Lots of tickets in a release
• Scrum Teams are not cross-functional - testers allocated to other projects, devs not testing
• Resource-efficiency is valued over flow-efficiency
• Indefinite time to complete a project (lack of release plan)
• Many tickets queued up from many sprints un-tested
• Waterfall approach to projects where testing happens at the end, results in reduced quality.
• Longer regression cycles 
• Un-testable tickets are brought in with the understanding, any problems will be caught in regression.

KPI's Aligned to Scrum

• Developers:
  • 5 MR's per sprint (encourages smaller bite-size tickets,  which allows the sprint goal to be achievable)
  • Obtain the Certified Scrum Developer
  • Meet Scrum Team KPI's
• Testers:
  • Obtain Certified Scrum Developer (yes, "developer" as testers are considered developers)
  • Meet Scrum Team KPI's
• Product Owners:
  • Create (or revise) their team's "Vision" and "Roadmap" for their team
  • Have a transparent, ordered backlog capable of filling a 6 sprint release plan
  • Obtain a certification i.e. Certified Scrum Product Owner
  • Meet Scrum Team KPI's
• Scrum Teams:
  • Average of 95% acceptance rate for sprint commitments (encourages teamwork, agility, swarming on tickets)
  • Create a 6-sprint release plan and execute it.
  • Implement 1 improvement from retro every sprint
  • Conduct a mini-regression every sprint covering the key system areas
• Dev Leads, Testing Leads
  • Obtain a certification i.e. Certified Agile Leadership Essentials

Agile Lunch & Learns

• Backlog Refinement - 3 C's of a User Story, INVEST, bad habits, good habits
• Effective Retrospectives - Fostering psychological safety to surface issues, focus on actionable outcomes
• Sprint Planning - what makes a good sprint goal?, capacity planning, determining velocity, good/bad habits
• Sprint Review - do's and don'ts
• Constant Ticket demos - why they are invaluable for feedback loop
• Creating Self-Managing Teams - Team Name, Team Norms, DOR, DOD

Foster an agile environment thru Monthly L&L's on scrum theory:

Improvements

Smaller, time-boxed releases

Definite time frame (release plans)

Testing to occur in-sprint

Flow-efficiency is valued over resource-efficiency

Cross-functional scrum teams (devs and testers swarm on tickets)

Mini-regressions to happen every sprint

PO Acceptance to happen in every sprint

UAT to happen every sprint

Testable tickets only

Team must have a clear vision, roadmap, and ordered backlog from their product owner.

"Scrum makes visible the relative efficacy of current management, environment, and work techniques, so that improvements can be made." - The Scrum Guide

"Changing the core design or ideas of Scrum, leaving out elements, or not following the rules of Scrum, covers up problems and limits the benefits of Scrum, potentially even rendering it useless." - The Scrum Guide

Scrum Values

• Commitment
• Focus
• Openness
• Respect
• Courage

Benefits of Scrum

• Quicker release of useable product to users and customers.
• Higher quality.
• Higher productivity.
• Lower costs.
• Focus on generating value
• Greater ability to incorporate changes as they occur.
• Happier teams, higher morale
• Better user satisfaction.
• Being able to complete complex projects faster and predictably.

Issues leading up to a Software Release

• High volume of tickets go into a release
  • Large scope of work
  • Organically defined scope of work
  • Massive testing effort
  • Longer regression testing
  • Pulls testers away from pods
  • Less collaboration between testing and dev
  • Tickets are tested at the end of a project (waterfall)
  • Testing Suffers
  • Developers work on tickets not making it to production for 6-12 months
• Long stretches between releases
• Resource-efficiency is prioritized over process-efficiency
• Customers are not frequently receiving new value from software

How do we contribute to the Company KPI's?

• 40M Revenue (Make sales)
• Net Dollar Retention (Keep customers)
• Gross Margin 70% (Productivity, Efficiency, Quality)

Frequent delivery of value to customers

5 Levels of Planning

Vision, Roadmap, Release plan, Sprint plan, Daily plan

Release Plan 

Each team has its own release plan

A subset of the product backlog is allocated into 6-7 sprints (Quarterly)

Who creates it?

PO and Scrum team

Developers and testers collaborate with their product owner

How many points per sprint?

In order to create (and execute) a release plan, we use a team's velocity to predict the number of points a team can complete each sprint. 

Velocity: The average # of points a team can complete per sprint based on historical performance. 

• Only includes "completed" tickets
• Completed = developed and tested

HIP Sprint

Hardening, Innovation, Planning

Keys to Release Plan

1. Identify risks and dependencies
2. Only fill up each to 80% capacity. Leaves room for injection, unknowns, and improvements that come out of retrospectives
3. All tickets developed and tested within same sprint
4. Small tickets (1-3 points)
5. Sprints will be grouped with similar tickets that can be more easily completed together
6. QA to conduct mini-regressions every sprint focusing on key areas affected by tickets
7. Every ticket is demo'd to and accepted by the Product Owner
8. Product Owner will be building and prioritizing features and tickets for the next quarterly increment.
9. Entire scrum team collaborates on release plan

Anticipated challenges

1. Un-tested tickets need to be caught up - Technology management
2. Develop and test in the same sprint - Technology management / Scrum teams
3. Velocity per team is unknown - Scrum teams
4. Amount of testers per team  - Technology management
5. Ordered feature backlog (team roadmap) - Product team

6. Enough product backlog (Jira tickets) to fill 6-sprints - Product team / Scrum teams

Backlog requirement

Need to fill 6 sprints

In order to create a release plan, a team's backlog must be ordered, and backlog items refined to the level needed to size them. 

2. Develop and test in the same sprint
Technology management / Scrum teams

2. Enough product backlog to fill 6 sprints

Scrum Team

5. Un-tested tickets need to be caught up
Technology management

Establishing Velocity

Velocity takes 3-4 sprints to determine

All tickets must be tested and accepted within the same sprint in order to establish a velocity.

6. Do we have enough testers?
Technology management

Action Items / Next Steps

1. Determine Plan for catching up backlog of un-tested tickets
2. Engage with Product Team and get them involved
3. Release Planning weekly standup

1. Ordered feature backlog

2. Enough product backlog to fill 6 sprints

1. Create a team's Vision
2. Create a team's Roadmap and have it transparent in Jira
3. Ordered backlog in Jira that can fill 6 sprints
4. Jira expertise
5. Understanding of scrum best practices

Product Team