The Project Manager's Guide to Mastering Agile, 2nd Edition

4Agile Planning, Requirements, and Product Backlog

AGILE PLANNING PRACTICES

PROBABLY THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE between Agile and more classical plan‐driven project management approaches is in the area of planning. There’s a misconception that Agile projects do not require planning. That is not the case—they require just as much or more planning; it is just done very differently. This chapter is just a high‐level overview of Agile planning. More detail will be provided in a later chapter on Adaptive Planning.

Classical plan‐driven project management approaches typically attempt to do more of the planning prior to the start of the project, while Agile Project Management approaches typically defers planning decisions to “the last responsible moment.” By the last responsible moment, we mean the latest point in time that a decision can be made without impacting the outcome of the overall project.

That is what is called rolling‐wave planning

• You typically start with a high‐level plan that is sufficient for defining at least the vision, scope, and objectives of the project to whatever level of detail is needed at that point to support whatever level of planning and estimation is required for the project.
• The details of the plan and the requirements are further elaborated as the project progresses. Of course, if the details of the project can be known with some level of certainty prior to the start of the project, there is absolutely nothing wrong with including those details in the ...