Predicting the future without planning

About this Case Study

Moving to a more agile way of working often brings significant challenges to senior stakeholders used to traditional project management reporting. How do you maintain a 'just in time' planning approach while still providing an appropriate level of project governance to engage the stakeholders? What do you do when the stakeholders are used to baselined Gantt charts, and all you have is a burn chart and partial product backlog?

In this session I will discuss some options I have successfully used to bridge the gap between stakeholder expectations and the desire for the team to spend limited time on early, up front planning. I will walk through an approach using control charts and simple mathematics to forecast the future with minimal up front analysis from the team. We have found this to be an effective way to balance an agile way of working with traditional project governance reporting expectations.

About the Speaker

Dave Longman is a product owner and scrum master with 8 years' experience leading agile teams across the globe.

He led a successful agile transformation of more than 100 people, across multiple locations, while working at the data management software company IDBS in Surrey. He currently leads the AXA division at Cornish outsourcing company, Headforwards, providing agile coaching and consultancy within both Headforwards and AXA-PPP.

Dave has a particular interest in building high-performing remote teams. Focusing on the basics - great communication and transparent reporting - he uses simple metrics to highlight where teams are performing well and where they may need assistance. He is always looking for ways to improve how teams deliver software and is currently focused on moving testing away from testers and onto developers.

 dlongman