Successful Pre-Planning

Sometimes things just go smoothly! Today was one such day. Today was the Pre-Planning of our next Release. Everyone was well prepared. As I have previously written, we are currently experimenting with Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). We have Product Visions and Roadmaps. This is an area where we have especially put our efforts on lately and it really starts paying off!

We had a two hour session. First some general information about the schedule and then introduction to not yet so familiar concepts of Themes and Roadmaps. Then the Product Managers introduced their latest Roadmaps and explained the business drivers. It was nice to see the leap in the quality since the previous Release.

After the Roadmaps, the Product Owners shared their teams' draft Release Plans. Some of them were not yet very realistic or contained way too many things, but it was good to have visibility to this none the less. Seeing some draft gives a lot more possibilities for improvement than having nothing at all.

Hopefully this two hour event gave the whole company a better view on where we are and where we want to go next. As the coordinator and facilitator of the event I felt it hit the spot. But I have a tendency of being over-optimistic from time to time. ;)

On a side note, I finished reading Management 3.0 by Jurgen Appelo. Great book! I can already see myself trying this stuff in action.