Step-by-step Guide To Perform Project Release Planning In Agile

Agile release planning with scrum is a systematic approach to organizing and executing project releases, ensuring that teams deliver value to customers incrementally and regularly.

Agile methodologies, such as scrum, have become increasingly popular for managing software development and other projects. One crucial aspect of agile project management is release planning.

In this blog post, we’ll provide a step-by-step guide to agile release planning with scrum.

1. Understand Scrum and Agile Principles:

Before diving into release planning, it’s essential to have a solid understanding of scrum and agile principles.

Scrum is a framework that promotes collaboration, adaptation, and transparency throughout the project.

Agile values customer feedback, flexibility, and continuous improvement. These foundational principles should guide your approach to release planning.

2. Identify Your Product Vision:

Release planning starts with a clear product vision. This is the long-term goal for your product or project.

What problem will it solve, and what value will it provide to your customers? Your product vision serves as a North Star, guiding all planning and development activities.

3. Create a Product Backlog:

The product backlog is a prioritized list of all the features, user stories, and tasks required to achieve your product vision.

Collaborate with your product owner and team to create and refine this backlog.

It’s a dynamic document that evolves as your understanding of the project deepens and as you receive feedback from stakeholders.

4. How to Create a Product Backlog in Orangescrum?

Step-1:

Step-2: View all Backlogs by Clicking on the Backlog Menu

5. Set Release Goals and Objectives:

With your product backlog in hand, it’s time to set clear release goals and objectives.

These goals will guide your release planning and help you define what you want to accomplish in a specific time frame.

Make sure your goals are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound).

How to Set Goals and Objectives in Orangescrum?

Achieve project goals and objectives by clubbing tasks in a task group.

Example:

For a ‘Drug Development project’ of a pharma industry you can group tasks based on one of the goal of the project i.e. ‘Meet Regulatory Compliance’

Set due date and enter the estimated hours

Add checklist to mark the compilation of a subtask

6. Define Release Increments:

In Scrum, releases occur incrementally. Rather than waiting for a single big release, you’ll plan multiple smaller increments or releases, each delivering value to your customers.

Define the scope and content of each release increment based on your release goals and priorities.

7. Estimate and Prioritize User Stories:

For each release increment, estimate the effort required to complete the user stories and tasks from the product backlog.

This estimation can be done using story points, t-shirt sizing, or other methods.

Prioritize the user stories within each increment based on business value and dependencies.

8. Sprint Planning:

In Scrum, work is organized into time-boxed iterations and sprints, typically lasting 2-4 weeks.

Your team will plan the work for each sprint based on the prioritized user stories.

Ensure that each sprint’s goals align with the release goals.

9. Release Roadmap:

Create a release roadmap that outlines the sequence of release increments, their content, and their expected release dates. This roadmap helps stakeholders understand the timeline and what to expect.

10. Continuous Monitoring and Adaptation:

Throughout the release planning and execution, it’s crucial to continuously monitor progress, adjust priorities if needed, and respond to changing circumstances.

Agile methodologies emphasize flexibility and adaptation, so don’t be afraid to make changes as you learn more about your project.

How to Monitor Project Development in Orangescrum?

View various task analysis report in Orangescrum dashboard

11. Review and Retrospective:

At the end of each sprint and release increment, conduct a sprint review and retrospective meeting to assess what was accomplished, gather feedback, and identify areas for improvement.

Use this feedback to refine release planning and enhance your product.

12. Release and Gather Feedback:

When a release increment is complete, release it to your customers or users. Gather feedback, analyze the results, and use this information to inform your future release planning efforts.

13. Rinse and Repeat:

Agile release planning with scrum is an iterative process. As you complete release increments, learn from each one and apply those lessons to future planning.

Continuously refine your product backlog, release goals, and overall strategy to better align with your product vision and customer needs.

Agile release planning with scrum is a dynamic and adaptive approach to project management that allows teams to deliver value regularly and respond to changing requirements.

By following these steps and embracing the scrum and agile principles, you can effectively plan and execute your releases, ensuring that your product evolves in sync with your customer’s evolving needs.

To execute the above-mentioned release planning processes you need to integrate Orangescrum. It enables project managers to collaborate and communicate with teams and stakeholders and manage the development process effectively.