Agile Planning is not much different than traditional planning in planned outcome or expected result. Teams or companies want to execute on a vision for a future state and make that future state a reality.
What challenges most teams or companies about agile planning is getting comfortable with uncertainty and flexibility. Agile planning is about trusting the short term more than the long term. In other words, plans longer than 12 weeks should be viewed as aspirational not actionable.
This means you want to put greater thought and effort in the 2 to 12 week timebox of planning than anything else. The long term future will take care of itself. The short term future is where you want to invest your energy and focus.
Here is a technique you can use immediately for longer term, 12 weeks out or so planning. Its called Planning Post-Mortem.
Step 1: Write out the top 5 outcomes you expect at the end of 12 weeks.
Step 2: Visually lay out the 5 outcomes on a chart or board left to right with the first outcome on the far left and the rest sequentially following.
Step 3: Gather the team and stakeholders to review the visual.
Step 4: Ask this question to the room or virtual meeting, “Assume that we failed to achieve these as planned, what do you think happened?” and let the discussion proceed.
In this exercise, you are tapping into the experience and imagination of the group but through their lens of future fear, concerns and worries. This is valuable information for the group to explore and to inform the planning. Often risks and dependencies not previously identified are revealed.
If you want to know more about elevating your Agile Planning, book a Saturday Skills Free Workshop where Agile Planning in your world is explored in more depth and on your terms with Agile Coach Tony Timbol. https://agileatanyscale.com/contact/