When working with agile teams you are inevitably asked that difficult question, “When will be it be done?”, and thought I can’t answer that, we’re agile and it will be done when it’s done. In many organisations this answer won’t satisfy your stakeholders, so what can you do instead?

In this session we will be taking a close look at the concepts of estimation, forecasting, and planning in the context of agile, how we can help your stakeholders understand how agile deliveries work, and how we can forecast forward whilst engaging with our stakeholders throughout the delivery to continuously manage their expectations.

In the session we will look at:

• What does the question “When Wil It Be Done?” really mean?
• What are real vs artificial deadlines and how we can use the concept of Minimum Viable Products to manage them.
• How to use estimates and forecasts, and why they aren’t the same thing.
• What does velocity mean, and why it isn’t helpful for forecasting.
• How story mapping helps us to plan.
• The importance of data and the need for strong, defensible assumptions.
• How Story Mapping can help us to plan and forecast.
• An introduction to probabilistic (Monte Carlo) forecasting.
• Building a forecast for an existing team.
• Building a forecast for a new team.
• Maintaining that forecast.
• Driving continuous improvement through forecasting data.

European Social Fund

ESF Business Clusters is part-funded by the European Social Fund. The project has a target of engaging with and supporting at least 580 SME and micro-businesses in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly before it concludes in December 2023. The Business Clusters partners work with a wide range of organisations to determine their workforce skills needs and co-design and pilot new training programmes to enhance the industry-relevance of the local educational offer.