Agility does not eliminate the need to plan

Some early proponents of the agile way of working insisted that:

• We will no longer need to plan!
• We will no longer need to document anything!
• We will no longer need to commit to a deadline!

All those statements are false, but none more so than, “We will no longer need to plan!”

Planning is essential for all our endeavors to succeed.

If we don’t plan, we will fail.

Failing to plan

A brilliant product manager set out to build a state-of-the-art system that would make the company lots of money. He assembled the best minds available and started building the system. He adopted an agile approach and divided his time sitting with each developer to describe their view of the system.

After nine months of working overtime, the product manager came under fire because he could not show the executive sponsors a cohesive working solution. Furthermore, no one besides the product manager could describe how the system would look or work. No one besides the product manager could picture the target solution.

Because they did not plan, their efforts failed to deliver tangible value to the customer after nine months.

Traditional planning versus Agile planning

Planning on agile projects is different than planning on traditional projects.

• We replace the Business Requirements Document (BRD) on agile projects with a Vision Statement.
• We replace the detailed Gantt Chart with a Product Roadmap on agile projects

A vision statement is a tool we use to describe the destination.
A product roadmap is a tool to define the path we will take to get there.

Why we need a vision statement

The vision statement must describe the product, define the scope, and answer these questions:

• Who is the target customer?
• What need will the product meet?
• What are the key benefits of this product?
• What makes this product different from other products like it?

Begin with the destination in mind. Prepare a vision statement, then add supporting material to help the team visualize the target solution.

Why we need a product roadmap

The product roadmap must contain 1- to 3-month time-boxes that define how product features can be combined to continually deliver value from the solution to the customer. With each iteration, we focus on providing the Minimally Marketable Features (MMF) of the product to produce a Minimal Viable Product (MVP). We can then redraw the product roadmap based on customer feedback after each iteration of product delivery.

Agile does not erase the need to plan.

Agile focuses on the essential elements for the endeavor to succeed:

• A vision statement describing the destination and
• a product roadmap showing how to get there.