Forecasting and Coaching Using Data, November 6 2019
If you work in an Agile environment and want to learn how to use data in practical ways for improvement or to make achievable plans in multiple-team environments, then this workshop is for you.
This one-day workshop teaches practical data visualization and probabilistic forecasting techniques (sounds complex, it isn’t) applied to any flavor of Agile software development. The content is split between using data for coaching and improvement and using data for planning and forecasting. The techniques practiced will outperform the current popular techniques used in Agile that fail due to an inability to cope with highly uncertain work items and complex system factors (dependencies and queues that cause low process efficiency).
All techniques are explained by solving real-world problems using exercises based on real projects and often from the attendees themselves. You will learn how to use concrete tools and knowledge that allow software and IT projects to be rapidly forecast using historical data when available. Also, how to use range estimates when relevant history isn’t available.
Agenda at a glance
- How to visualize data to get action towards objectives
- What data should be captured and how it can be used – Team and organization dashboards
- Reasons why current estimation and forecasting techniques fail, even when using data
- How probabilistic forecasting works and why you need it
- Forecasting size of features, delivery duration, and capacity – an end to end exercise
Who this course is for
Forecasting using data will benefit people in the following roles:
- Product Management
- Product Owners
- Scrum masters
- Agile coaches
More generally, it is perfect for:
- Anyone who currently uses (or teaches) estimates to forecast how long or how big teams need to be to deliver work (portfolio or product management, product owners, scrum masters, coaches).
- Anyone who needs to observe team and organization improvement over time irrespective of the process used such as Scrum, Kanban or combinations (like SAFe).
Learning outcomes
Many of the problems solved during the session will use spreadsheets and worksheets that allow you to immediately answer the same questions in your company the next day. After this course, you will understand how and why these tools work and how to explain them to others.
Problems and examples discussed and solved during the workshop include –
- How to build a balanced dashboard for team coaching or improvement
- How to determine if a process issue impacts all teams or just a few teams (system versus local)
- How to set better outcomes and link those outcomes to compelling visual charts for coaching
- How to forecast what will fit into a fixed delivery time (e.g. sprint, release, quarter)
- How to forecast the flow rate through a development and delivery process
- How to forecast how long a project will take using range estimates or historical data
- How to manage dependencies between teams to reliably forecast
- How to estimate the remaining defect counts and ways to assess release readiness
- How to assess staff risk impact due to skills or lack of availability
- How to integrate risk management with feature and project forecasts
Prerequisites
No specific statistical or mathematical knowledge is needed; this session introduces all of the skills needed to perform forecasts without complex statistics or mathematics. Bring a laptop (that has Excel installed) to follow along on your own data, or just watch me or your colleagues.