AGILE IN ACTION: Mind mapping the sprint goal for a big visible chart

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Mind mapping the sprint goal for a big visible chart

I've used mind maps to do many things, from constructing daily plans and to-do lists to study and revision to planning a party. Recently i started to use a mind map to portray a visualisation of the Sprint Goal.

After a day of sprint planning sometimes the team can sometimes become immersed in detail and lose sight of the big picture. I like to conclude the sprint planning by reconvening with the product owner to collectively declare the sprint goal, bringing the big picture back into focus. While the sprint goal defined in text can be concise, it does tend to be a rather dull artifact. And generating the sprint goal doesn't generate much excitement or enthusiasm at the end of a long day. Mind mapping is an effective way of focusing your thoughts to rise above the detail and return to the big picture. The visual product is a far more interesting artifact than a statement and it's fun creating it. The conclusion of sprint planning is a satisfying achievement in itself, but the fun element of mind mapping as a group seems to recharge everyone before they go home.

The sprint goal needs to be omnipresent during the sprint. As the sprint progresses, the team repeatedly assess the remaining work and evaluate the completed user stories to ensure that, in some shape or form, the sprint goal is being satisfied. Referring to a visual representation of the sprint goal rather than reading text from the planning board or tool, or recalling it from memory is more effective and more pleasing. Omnipresence is more easy achieved with a big visible chart so draw the mind map on a whiteboard.

sprintgoal
Originally uploaded by sjb140470.

Tags: agile, scrum, mindmap, big visible chart

2 Comments:

At permalink, Deb said...: So Simon, what would this Goal be in words?
deb
(Deborah Hartmann)
At permalink, sjb140470 said...: Hi Deb

From memory the goal went something like "Producer can view the play statistics, while live on-air, for the player selected randomly by the telephonist and matched to an existing user profile by telephone number".

I know it reads like a user story (but it's actually 4 weeks of work) and that's a product of my approach to planning:

A vision is produced as part of a charter. This vision is distilled into a release roadmap comprising themes or goals. I like to combine Scrum and Extreme Programming so that a Sprint equates to a 4-week release made up of 4 1-week iterations. Releasing as often as possible is a good thing.

Each sprint goal is evolved over time by working with the product owner. The evolution is as follows: sprint/release themes/goals >> epics >> user stories >> acceptance tests >> code/unit tests.

(See my posts on adaptive planning and Planning with the Horizon of Predictability for more information).