Planning is an Agile Process

In “Agile Estimating and Planning”, Mike Cohn excellently explains the problems associated with project planning and effort estimation and presents “agile estimating and planning” as a solution.

I have used this book many times over the past few years. It was published in 2005, so it is a bit older, yet still relevant. And the age of the book also has an advantage: back then, the author Mike Cohn (one of the “inventors” of Scrum) still really had to convince people why agile planning is better. Therefore, the book can be used as a helpful guide for reasoning with people who still come from the “old world” of waterfall development, e.g., from certain banks, insurance companies, or public authorities.

After explaining the problems with planning, the author explains “agile planning” using “story points,” “velocity,” and “planning poker.” It is a brilliant move by the author to turn effort estimation, which is very unpopular among developers, into a game of poker. Further chapters discuss dealing with risks, financial planning, and the selection of features to be considered. Finally, “release planning” is about estimating the completion dates of individual features based on the existing agile plan. The agile plan is then worked through step-by-step in “iterations.” The author offers a wealth of his experience here and gives valuable tips for planning and executing iterations. The author also goes into detail on how to handle uncertainties in the plan using so-called “buffer zones.” Finally, the execution of the plan, “monitoring” with “burndown charts,” and “re-planning” are also discussed.

This book is still a groundbreaking and important book.

• Mike Cohn
• Agile Estimating and Planning
• Prentice-Hall
• 2005

See also the german review on Amazon.