Agile Estimating and Planning
Create estimates that are quick, accurate and reliable
Agile Estimating and Planning is the online video course that shows you how to create meaningful estimates even for complex, long-term projects. More than 2,500 students have enjoyed this no-nonsense course that simplifies even the most uncertain planning situations.
What You Get
Lifetime, instant access to over 3 hours of content
6 modules of content, including 44 professionally-recorded videos
Quizzes to test your knowledge
Why Take Agile Estimating and Planning
Agile Estimating and Planning shows you how to create estimates that give development teams the independence to get the job done while meeting stakeholder expectations. Deadlines don’t have to kill morale, and long-term planning doesn’t have to lock you into an unrealistic commitment.
This course shows you how to build a safe environment so teams aren't tempted to produce false estimates. You'll see how to build transparency around progress so that the relationship between stakeholders and team members is more productive and respectful. And you'll be able to build a step-by-step estimating process that is objective, and works even when you have a range of skills and experience within the team.
After this course you'll accelerate planning meetings while improving the quality of discussion around estimates.
The Problem and Our Goal
- Why Plans Go Wrong
- More Reasons Why Plans Go Wrong
- Planning at Multiple Levels
- Good Agile Planning
Iteration Planning
- Working in the Right Order
- The Iteration Planning Meeting
- Velocity-Driven Iteration Planning
- Estimating Capacity for Commitment Commitment, Driven Planning
- How Full Should an Iteration Be
- Commitment-Driven Iteration Planning
- An Example of Commitment-Driven Iteration Planning
- Which Type of Iteration Planning Is Best
Story Points and Ideal Days
- Product Backlog Estimating Units
- Estimate Size; Derived Duration
- Ideal Time
- Story Points
- How Do You Come Up with a Story Blank Estimate
- An Example of Estimating with Story Points
- Getting Started and Staying Within One Order of Magnitude
- Reasons to Favor Ideal Time
- Three Advantages to Story Points
- Story Points Are a Pure Measure of Size
- Your Time and My Time Cannot Be Added
- Points Help Avoid Unit Confusion
- What I Prefer and Do
- Are Story Points Time or Complexity
Estimating The Product Backlog
- Some Tips on How to Estimate
- Disaggregating Product Backlog Items
- Use the Right Units
- Planning Poker
- Why Planning Poker Works
- Anchoring
- Relating Points to Hours
Release Planning
- Release Planning with Historical Velocity Data
- Forecasting Velocity
- Predicting Velocity When Team Size Changes
- Fixed Date Plans
- Fixed Scope Plan
- Fixed Price Plans
Topics for Multi-Team Projects
- Estimating the Product Backlog in a Common Unit
- Multiple Team Iteration Planning
- Rolling Lookahead Planning
It can’t get any better than this Estimating is one of the toughest things that we face in Agile Projects. No body explains it better than the man himself. The logical sequence in which the content is presented, gives a better understanding about estimating. The reasons to use Story Points over other units is explained crystal clearly. A correct mix of Mike in person speaking to you and animated concepts helps you to focus on learning rather than just listening. Even after completing the course, I had the visual of Mike explaining the concept for few days afterwards. A highly recommended course for any agilist.Raju K.
Access Our Resources, Planning Poker® and AI Toolkit
Expanded access to MGS Essentials, included with your trainining, is your toolkit for doing agile better, with resources that help you and your team move faster, plan smarter, and deliver more value.
Access live events, video lectures, and a powerful set of tools including online Planning Poker®, the Elements of Agile assessment and AI tools for coaching, story splitting and backlog item generation.
Upcoming Public Training
Course Includes:
Certification Credits
Your Instructor
Mountain Goat has handpicked instructors that share our training values. These are people with deep experience, who are leading teams with agile today and can give you real-world answers about what does and doesn’t work.
Mike Cohn
With 20+ years of agile training experience, Mike has honed a talent for explaining agile concepts with clear illustrations and real-life examples. Participants enjoy his passion for teaching the agile methodologies in a relatable and digestible way.
Read more...Mike is CEO of Mountain Goat Software, and one of the industry’s most well-respected Certified Scrum Trainers. He is the author of User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development, Agile Estimating and Planning, and Succeeding with Agile. He is a co-founder and former board member of the Scrum Alliance, and a co-founder of the non-profit Agile Alliance, home of the Agile Manifesto.
Scrum Certifications include: CSM, CST, CSPO, A-CSM, CSP-SM, CSP-PO
Got a Question?
What happens when you contact us?
- We’ll get back to you within a day.
- Answer your training questions and discuss any custom needs.
- Recommend the best agile training path for your teams and goals.
- Want to talk to someone? Schedule a call.