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WEEK 2 - Planning the PI
As the EPIC Program Team enters the next PI there is considerable preparation that needs to take place to set up Individual teams for success. This week the planning phase of the Agile Scrum Framework was In full swing with a week's worth of meetings before Sprint 6.1 commences on Monday, September 12th. We had a mix of 'all hands' (anyone belonging to the EPIC Program Team) and Unified Workflow Team meetings.
Breakdown of All Hands Meetings:
Plenary: General information such as key PI dates, goal updates & planning context
Draft Plan Review: Capacity & load metrics for Individual teams, review PI objectives
Planning Adjustments: Adjust drafted plans
Final Plan & Risk Reviews: Finalize PI objectives, capacity & load metrics & analyze risks
Breakdown of Unified Workflow Team Meetings:
UW Breakout #1: Story board planning(planning poker) & Identify risks
UW Breakout #2: Draft PI plan & Identify risks
UW Breakout #3: Finalize PI plan & analyze risks
UW Team DSM: Daily Standup Meeting
After attending the meetings and reviewing the descriptions above, each all hand meeting matches up well with a UW Team meeting. This allows us to understand our team goals, and then share with the EPIC Program Team and hear what other teams are planning. Each meeting lasted for quite some time, and I felt in the team meetings there were points where the topics being discussed could have been taken offline. For example, during the UW Breakout #1 we had a stakeholder join us. A stakeholder Is someone who Is Interested In the features we are building, but are not a part of the scrum team. The team discussed with the stakeholder about a potential meeting with the UFS Steering Committee that seemed to be outside the scope of the current meeting. Whenever the meeting steered too far off focus, Fredrick seemed to bring the team back to the agenda of the meeting. He also seems to be playing the role of the mediator within the team.
Information Gathering
Information Gathering
Image 1 - Agile Scrum Framework
Image 2 - Unified Workflow(UW) Team Org Chart
During the Plenary all hands meeting I was able to review a breakdown of the Unified Workflow(UW) Team. I provided the Agile Scrum Framework image I highlighted last week for reference as well. Christina is acting as our Product Owner, where she is the team member who represents the voice of the customer and prioritizes user stories, and the feature backlog. The Scrum Master Is Fredrick who acts as buffer between the Team and external distractions, keeping the team focused on the task at hand, enforcing team rules, and removing impediments that prevent the team from making progress. An example of the Scrum Master is enforcing coding standards, which are style guidelines that improve the consistency and readability of the code. After having this information, Fredrick acting as a mediator for the Unified Workflow Team made more sense.
Within the Draft Plan Review meeting, I was able to obtain the calendar for our PIs and sprints for PI 6. One key takeaway I found from the PI Calendar was that the EPIC Program Team has only been established for roughly a year, allowing me to understand where the action for constant revisions of PI planning stem from.
Image 3 - PI Calendar
Image 4 - PI 6 Sprints
Pitfalls & Risks
Pitfalls & Risks
There have been a lot of pitfalls and risks associated with PI planning extending from the onboarding of new individuals and the recent establishment of the EPIC Program Team. This causes Issues like communication, flushing out concrete goals to tackle and members not understanding the overall vision of the team. Throughout the meetings this week I was able to capture several of these pitfalls and risks that are displayed within Images 5 to 7. Image 5 highlights a key error In communication of scheduling the planning of PI 6 - where PI planning accidentally fell on a 'quiet' week. A Quiet Week Is one that Is Intended for members to have a lighter workload allowing them to recharge for the next week or PI ahead, that typically falls after Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day and Veteran's Day. It was addressed Immediately that 'Quiet Week' is a new feature added by the team that not everyone was informed of yet.
Lastly, within our Final Plan & Risk Review Meeting the team of the EPIC Program took a Virtual Confidence Vote. A Virtual Confidence Vote is how sure an individual Is that their specific team or the larger organization as a whole can accomplish 80 - 100% of the next PI objectives. After the teams had voted It showed that 39.9% estimated 4 - Probable, 59.8% estimated 3 - Possible, and the remainder (consisting of 1 person) estimated a 5 - We got this. We had ~40 people on the call and ~35 participated on the virtual confidence vote. After comparing this vote to Image 6 that shows usually around 60% of the objectives for a PI get completed, I'm Interested to Investigate more Into why the majority of the team voted a 3? Why are we roughly seeing 60% of completion of goals for each PI? And how will the changes from PI 5 help Increase these metrics for PI 6?
The goal is to implement the improvements continuously from each PI Planning session to Increase the efficiency for future sessions.
Image 5 - What Didn't Work
Image 6 - PI 5 Objective Completion
Image 7 - PI 6 Virtual Confidence Vote
A Look Ahead
A Look Ahead
Sprint 6.1 will begin on Monday, September 12th starting PI 6! Within our UW Daily Standup, the team was able to identify two stories for Emily and I to work on either individually or together using the pair programming technique. Next week, I'll discuss more on our tasks(UW-205 & UW-206), and what pair programming consists of.
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