Release Planning in One Day

In this blog I have shared experiences of our Release Planning Days. Of course the first one was most memorable since back then everything was new and exciting. Second attempt proved that it wasn't pure luck, but that the concept was actually working. I documented also the third one, but after that I thought that it maybe isn't that exciting anymore.

One unfortunate thing to mention is that the day was a public holiday in one of our offices. But quite a few of our colleagues from that site were willing to come to work on that day and get another day free in exchange. I call that going the extra mile.

But maybe I can tell about the most recent attempt, since it was again a bit different from the previous times. For our latest Release Planning I had given some of my colleagues a few chores to fill in advance. Here's the list:

• Portfolio Backlog is in presentable state
• Product Managers have discussed their the Roadmaps with teams working directly with them
• Product Managers have made an initial Launch Plan for their products
• Product Owners have crafted Draft Release Plans for their teams

Out of these, the first task went to our Chief Portfolio Officer who is like the Grand Vizier of the Portfolio level. Second and third tasks went to Product Managers (Program level) and the fourth one to the Product Owners (Team level). 

Launch Plan is a term that isn't originally from SAFe (as far as I know). It communicates the intended usage of the Release if and when it would be successful. Previously we had identified a waste of extra waiting time when the Release was ready, but we had not decided what to do with it. The accompanied business needs are in most cases clear already when the work on the release starts. That's why it is practical to craft also a plan about the usage. And if something is left our the Release scope, the plan can be adjusted.

So, in essence we skipped the first Team Breakout. Also the organization of the presentations was modified. In our past Release Plannings all Product Managers have presented their Roadmaps in a row. But since we had the Draft Release Plans already available at the beginning of the event, I wanted to form logical entities of the Roadmaps and associated Release Plans. This also helped in focusing on one subject at a time.

The morning part of the day was heavy. That was clear already beforehand. But we didn't come up with any better alternatives. At least grouping the presentations in the new way was seen as an improvement.

All in all things went pretty much as expected. During the Team Breakout some plans were modified but most of them were almost the same as during the draft phase. The new, more compact way of conducting the day seemed to work well and we will probably do it like this also next time.