The Agile Schedule

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The Agile Schedule

Ken Whitaker

January 19, 2010






Just because you’ve proclaimed yourself an agile shop, do you think management (and the finance department) will allow your team to get away with no real estimate for completion? Scrum, as in most agile processes, takes the approach that cost (budget) and time (schedule) are fixed and it is the scope (features) that are variable. However, you’ll probably hear from a team “because we now use Scrum, we’ll let you know when we’re done as we iterate through” in response to the need for release dates.
We’ll examine a pragmatic way to derive a schedule (and subsequently a project cost) for a process framework that is inherently flexible--but one that still must plan for a release date. The approach covered will hopefully satisfy both your management and your team’s desire for practical schedule planning.
Background
Using Scrum as an example agile framework, a project’s scope is broken down into prioritized cycles of mini-feature deliveries.



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