Scrum planning principles
&
Agile Portfolio planning
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What is meant by Scrum Principles ?
The basis or cornerstone of a fast-paced scrum architecture is the scrum rules. When Scrum rules are combined with immediate values, the project becomes more visible and familiar. Scrum principles and ideals are used to build and improve the Scrum framework. Scrum is the most widely used and popular method for rapidly building goods or software. Integration, efficient software, team expectations, and the flexibility to adapt to changing project needs are all stressed in Scrum. Scrum is a strategy or framework for starting the software development life cycle that is adaptable. Scrum is based on the expectations of the team and the collaboration of the project management teams.
Why Scrum Principle and Scrum Agile Methodology ?
Because the scrum development team understands how to best post product development and deliver the best, it acts as management in the form of scum agile. Scrum is a collection of short "sprint" processes for creating and launching successful projects and products. Scrum is used in projects with roughly 10 team members and is implemented in short cycles with daily scrum meetings overseen and led by a Scrum master working within a defined framework. The scrum approach is extensively used in software development projects. Other business changes that are at risk of occurring in real time can also be addressed using the Scrum approach.
Scrum development begins with sprint planning, in which team members quickly identify the needs and activities to which they can commit, and then design or create an incorrect sprint backlog, which lacks a particular list of items to be done within the sprint release. The sprint lasts 2-3 weeks, and every sprint day, a scrum meeting is held to track and monitor the project's progress. The performance of the product prototype is evaluated, and the prototype is provided to consumers and stakeholders for feedback on future development phases. Enhancements are given to the following athlete.
Important Principles of Scrum
Following are the important scrum principles that are followed and incorporated while deploying a project:
We place a high value on customer happiness. Client satisfaction is high as a consequence of consistent and speedy project delivery. A happy customer is a happy customer, and a happy customer gets consistent product or software delivery.
Changes and improvements are encouraged and will be applied in the future product development programme to give the best-in-class service. In terms of flexibility, this reduces process stiffness and enhances flexibility.
The active prototype is delivered at the end of all duplication, and the project is completed on time or ahead of schedule, resulting in increased customer satisfaction. The scrum frame is repeated and executed with constant feedback and improvement actions, leading in a flawless product or software.
Daily stand-up meetings are held between participants and the project delivery team to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that there is no confusion among team members. Scrum team members can track project / product development and promote openness during these scrum sessions.
Face-to-face and daily motivating meetings are encouraged to be more productive and efficient, as well as to keep the team motivated. Face-to-face communication is the most effective way to interact with team members and communicate information 2.
Because developers, testers, consumers, and stakeholders are all on the same page with the same goal in mind, the scrum agile approach supports continuous development. Continuous development with scrum agile deployment aids job prediction.
Throughout the duplication process, paying attention to product design and technological efficiency encourages and enhances agility, avoiding errors and offering the best outcome.
Objectives that are both low-cost and low-error. Following a basic process phase emphasises simplicity, reduction of the same function, and product backwardness.
To satisfy team expectations, the best thoughts, requirements, and designs from self-organizing teams are offered.
Users or customers supply constant feedback and suggestions, and the development team is allowed to make changes to improve the product. Continual learning is enhanced by continuous evaluation of each repeat.
It motivates employees and fosters a good working environment, allowing clients' expectations to be met. Because the scrum agile model encourages and centres team aspirations, business leaders and engineers should collaborate every day throughout the project. Project development can take place in close proximity to motivated professionals according to Scrum agile principles. It promotes self-organization and self-regulation among scrum team members, as well as the objective of finishing the tough task of small management.
Open communication, group discussions, and interactions with stakeholders should be held on a daily or regular basis to track product progress.
Scrum policy emphasises prioritisation based on the number of features and functionalities provided in each sprint, which increases the business value of the firm.
Because it identifies and removes Scrum's most critical limitation: time, time-boxing is an important scrum system. The Scrum time box includes running value, daily stand-up meetings, Sprint Planning Meetings, review meetings, and looking back. The timeline has been adjusted, but it may still be adjusted to match the project's demands. Setting Scrum goals is both an easy and a complex task.
The scrum creation process is driven by the metrics listed above, and the scrum director is the driver. The scrum master's job is to bring these ideas together in a scrum team in order to achieve scrum success. The scrum master must work with the team and the product owner to ensure that sprint backlogs are properly defined and utilised. The summarization of the scrum's numbers creates a place for exploratory learning. The scrum is focused on a few goals, and the group's success contributes to a larger goal.
Agile Portfolio Planning
AGILE PORTFOLIO PLANNING: AN OVERVIEW
Many companies want or need to produce a large number of items at the same time. These multi-product businesses must make cost-effective decisions on how to regulate trade among their many items. I've noticed that the most cost-effective strategy is to use a fast-paced portfolio planning approach that aligns with the fundamental operating concepts.
Quick portfolio planning is the process of deciding which commodities or projects to work on, in what order, and for how long (or portfolio management).
Timing of Agile Portfolio Planning :
Putting together a fast portfolio is, in reality, a never-ending task. As long as a company has commodities to manufacture or sustain, a portfolio must be managed.
As you may recall from "Multilevel Planning in Scrum: Chapter 15," portfolio planning is at a higher hierarchical level than individual product level planning, or reasoning. That isn't to say that portfolio planning comes first, then product level planning. The information obtained during a vision, on the other hand, is used in portfolio planning to determine whether or not a product will be supported and, if so, how to sequence it utilising portfolio backwardness.
Portfolio planning, on the other hand, isn't only about adding new pieces to your collection. This conference is held at regular intervals to assess in-process items, such as those that are being manufactured, are live, or are currently on the market.
Participants in Agile Portfolio Planning :
Internal stakeholders with the knowledge to prioritise new products and make decisions on in-process goods should be involved in the agile portfolio planning process. Individual product owners who act as brand ambassadors and resource advocates should also be featured. Senior architects and technical leaders are typically called upon to ensure that any important technical constraints are considered when making decisions.
Agile Portfolio Planning Process :
The image below illustrates the agile portfolio planning process.
Image Source: "Agile Portfolio Planning: Essential Scrum Chapter 16 | Innolution"
Portfolio Planning: Inputs & Outputs
Two of the inputs to portfolio planning are new product data and data on in-product products. This information, which includes cost, duration, value, risk, and more, should be collected as part of the product identification process for new commodities. For operational items, the data might comprise a moderate customer reaction, changed costs, timetables, and space ratings, technical debt levels, and market-related data. The product data that has been analysed will assist in defining the future orientation of these things.
A portfolio backlog and a collection of functional items are the two outcomes of portfolio planning. Portfolio backlogs are similar to product backlogs, with the exception that the back portfolio reflects a large number of products, programmes, or projects that have been approved but not yet commenced development. A product, a product campaign (a single product release), or a project might be represented by each item on the portfolio's back side. This chapter refers to all three types of portfolios as "products."
The active product list includes new and authorised things for immediate development, as well as those that are currently being processed and approved.
Portfolio Planning Includes 4 Activities
Participants in portfolio planning utilise four types of actions to manage the portfolio backlog and active products:
Scheduling of Inflows, Outflows, and In-Process Products
The tasks and strategies for agile portfolio planning are depicted in the diagram below. All of these actions and strategies are required for effective portfolio planning and are intended to work in tandem.
Image Source: "Agile Portfolio Planning: Essential Scrum Chapter 16 | Innolution"
Agile Portfolio Planning: Scheduling Strategies
Portfolio planning's major purpose is to allocate limited organisational resources to diverse goods in a cost-effective manner. For finding product sequences, I suggest the following two approaches:
Configure the Lifecycle Advantages
Calculate the Delay Cost
Portfolio Planning Scheduling Strategy 1: Optimize Lifecycle Profits
Lifecycle benefits determine a product's total value over its lifetime. Portfolio planning, on the other hand, is focused on maximising lifetime profit across the whole product portfolio, even if it means sacrificing earnings per product.
The cost of delay and the length of time are two factors that help define a life cycle's profitability, and both are covered in full in the next two strategies.
Portfolio Planning Scheduling Strategy 2: Calculate Cost of Delay
Before developing life cycle goods, a corporation must first assess the cost of the delay. The financial charges spent as a result of service delays and, as a result, product delivery are known as delay costs. Many companies struggle to calculate the cost of delays, despite the fact that this is an easy problem to solve.
Another way to figure out how much a product costs is to use two different spreadsheet models to calculate the life cycle benefits — one with and one without delay. To calculate the cost of the product delay, subtract two life cycle benefits (one for each spreadsheet). The goal is to reduce the overall cost of the portfolio of delays. To put it another way, prioritise portfolio backlogs to reduce the overall cost of portfolio delays across the board.
Agile Portfolio Planning: Inflow Strategies
Participants could benefit from four inflow methods for agile portfolio planning to help them select when to add items to the backlog:
Utilize the Economic Filter.
The Arrival and Departure Rates must be in balance.
Make smaller, more frequent releases a priority.
Portfolio Planning Inflow Strategy 1: Economic Filter
An economic filter is a wide term that refers to all of an organization's decision-making mechanisms for evaluating a proposed product economy and deciding whether or not to support it. This frequently includes data gathered during the thought process — cost, time, volume, risk, and so on — as well as product vision data derived from product level planning. (This differs from the strategy filter.)
A professional economic filter should reveal if the opportunity is worth much more than its cost. Those who meet this condition should be accepted, while those who do not should be discarded.
Portfolio Planning Inflow Strategy 2: Balance Arrival & Departure Rates
Companies would want to have a steady backlog of goods rather than a continuous stream of things released from the portfolio in an ideal world. Too many companies are striving to focus on all of the desirable commodities that may be included in a portfolio at the same time. As a result, data is lost and harm is caused.
The best strategy is to progressively add fewer products to the portfolio. This reduces the size of the collection and makes sequencing much easier.
If the back portfolio departs the balance, alter the economic filter to reduce the backlog. To put it another way, only high-value products should be allowed to pass through product authorisation criteria.
Portfolio Planning Inflow Strategy 3: Embrace Emergent Opportunities
Emerging opportunities should be considered while putting together a rapid portfolio. Because the opportunity that has shown itself was previously unknown or deemed to be too little to arise, it is not one on which money should be spent right now. The economic worth of many developing opportunities is rapidly fading, necessitating organisations' ability to do tasks quicker in order to gain any economic value. Organizations that use the other strategies outlined here will not have to wait long to analyse the opportunity presented, allowing them to take advantage of a portion of it.
AGILE PORTFOLIO PLANNING: OUTFLOW STRATEGIES
Whether it comes to evaluating when a product should be removed from the portfolio backlog, outflow strategies can help. The following are the strategies:
The focus should be on idle work rather than idle workers.
Set a WIP (Work-In-Progress) limit.
Wait for a complete crew to arrive.
Portfolio Planning Outflow Strategy 1: Focus on Idle Work
The Agile Principle's primary goal is to help the jobless, not the unemployed. According to this theory, idle labour is far more damaging to the economy than inactive labour. Many firms, on the other hand, fail to use this method while designing their portfolios in a hurry. They quit after removing items from the portfolio until all of their staff are functioning at maximum capacity.
On this journey, everyone will be kept busy. It will, however, reduce the strain on the overall product. The best approach is to start working on new products only when there is a consistent flow of work, rather than disrupting the flow of existing products.
Portfolio Planning Outflow Strategy 2: Establish a WIP Limit
Large quantities of things from the rest of the portfolio with a chance of being phased out should never be released. As a result, all item volumes will be reduced (resulting in each delay), and quality will suffer.
Portfolio Planning Outflow Strategy 3: Wait for a Complete Team
Because the volume unit in Scrum is a group, organisations should not begin working on a product without a full Scrum team. With an inadequate Scrum team, the features cannot be realised. Once a team has been chosen, product development may begin, even if it will eventually require many Scrum teams, as long as it makes sense to start working on particular areas.
AGILE PORTFOLIO PLANNING: IN-PROCESS STRATEGY
During the establishment of a very short portfolio, participants should spend some time looking at current, functional things to determine what is presently appropriate: persistence, delivery, rotation, or suspension for each product. These decisions should be made on a frequent basis (for example, at the end of each sprint) or in the event that current products need to be re-evaluated.
While each governmental body will have its own set of judgments to make, a comprehensive strategy will be to regulate any erroneous economic decisions.
Portfolio Planning In-Process Strategy: Use Marginal Economics
Marginal economics is a lens that helps firms decide whether or not to spend the next portion of their budget. All work done on the product up to the moment of decision is referred to as "heated" work. The heating costs do not correspond to the company's decision on whether or not to spend the next segment of the product on the product, which may appear to be inconsistent.
Companies can choose to tolerate a product, deliver it as is, turn it around (try a different approach), or restrict it by focusing only on the financial viability of the next investment in it.
Marginal economics is a powerful tool for doing the right thing and uncovering the dumb and wasteful behaviours that result from focusing too much on the price of hot things. It should be a main approach for determining what to do with in-progress development.
AGILE PORTFOLIO PLANNING: SUMMARY
The nine alternatives presented in this chapter are all helpful to both parties. If companies accomplish everything, they will make a lot of money. Focus on the cost of delays, minor and frequent outsourcing, the WIP limit, and the modest economy if a firm must start with only one strategy in each phase for some reason.