Product Increment Planning, also known as release planning, is a crucial activity in the delivery of IT projects under an agile methodology.
In agile, projects are broken down into smaller increments called Product Increments which are typically 3 months long in Australian Federal Government. Each Product Increment delivers a potentially shippable product increment, adding value to the overall project. Product increment planning focuses on identifying the features or user stories that will be included in the next iteration.
Product Increment Planning follows the project initiation and backlog prioritisation phases. You can refer to my previous blogs on agile methodology which talk about the:
Below are the steps involved in Product Increment Planning based on my experience working on large-scale agile projects across Federal Government. Note that is important to tailor your approach to the needs of the project and organisation.
- Iteration length determination: The team determines the duration of the next iteration based on factors like team capacity, complexity of the work, and the organisation’s release cadence.
- Capacity planning: The team determines its capacity for the upcoming iteration by considering the availability of team members, their skills, and their estimated time for the iteration.
- User story breakdown: The identified user stories are broken down into smaller, manageable tasks. This helps in estimating effort and assigning tasks to team members.
- Backlog refinement: The product backlog, which contains a prioritised list of all user stories and features, is refined. This involves adding, removing, or re-prioritising items based on new insights, changing requirements, or feedback from stakeholders.
- Iteration planning: The team plans the specific tasks that need to be completed during the upcoming iteration. This includes assigning tasks to team members, estimating effort for each task, and determining dependencies.
- Definition of Done (DoD): The team agrees on the definition of done, which outlines the criteria that must be met for a user story to be considered complete and ready for release.
In the 2020 Agile Survey by the Scrum Alliance, 60% of respondents mentioned that increasing customer satisfaction is the primary reason for adopting agile. Product Increment Planning, with its focus on delivering value in increments, helps in achieving this goal.
At a major federal government agency in Australia, I participated in Product Increment Planning with five IT delivery teams. The most crucial activity I observed was user story breakdown. By fleshing out user stories with Business Analysts, Testers, Developers, Scrum Master, Product Owner and business subject matter experts, we had collective agreement on what can be delivered in the upcoming Product Increment.
Product Increment Planning promotes collaboration, transparency, risk mitigation, resource allocation, incremental delivery, and adaptability. In my experience, it has played a key role in providing confidence to impacted stakeholders.
Agile Framework
In the below agile framework, I am sharing a visual one-page diagram on how to implement Agile on a large scale. This framework is based on the process that was implemented at a large Federal Government Agency in Australia (who employ over 20,000 staff). I worked with more than 10 highly mature Scrum Teams at this Federal Agency who have been successfully delivering projects under large scale SAFe Agile methodology for more than 10 years. Please reach out to me at kirtan.jamnadas@aclivity.com.au if you would like to receive this document in PowerPoint format which can be updated.
About the author
Kirtan Jamnadas is a management consultant with over seven years of experience successfully delivering complex IT projects at four large federal government agencies in Australia.
Kirtan is passionate about initiating and driving projects forward while ensuring that all stakeholders are engaged and on board with the project’s goals.
With his employer’s support, Kirtan established the company’s project management practice – this included developing all the frameworks, tools and templates to ensure projects are set up for success.
Kirtan’s mission is to provide current and aspiring project managers with simple and practical tools to help streamline operations, optimise performance and achieve project success.
