Drunk Agile Predictability and Forecasting Cohort

Welcome

The first Drunk Agile Predictability and Forecasting cohort will run from Late June to Early August. The cohort consists of weekly sessions and requires you to do some homework in between. The sessions will be conducted by Dan Vacanti and Prateek Singh(and of course Nisha). Below are the details of the structure and the sessions for the cohort. At the end of the cohort, the students will be able to attempt the PAM assessment from ProKanban.Org.

Structure

• Six 1.5-hour sessions with homework in between

• Thursdays 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST

• Session Dates - June 29th, July 6th, July 13th, July 20th, July 27th and Aug 3rd (Optional extra session on Augst 10th)

Sessions

• Session 0

  • A student starting the cohort is expected to watch this video - Dan Vacanti |Your Project Behaves Like a Hurricane. Forecast It Like One. [En] at least a week in advance of the first session.

  • Homework - Come up with 3 situations (2 work-related and 1 non-work related) where you can apply the three principles. Expand upon how you would apply these.

  • Homework Due Date - June 29th

• Session 1

  • Multiple item forecasting - Part 1 (Throughput)

  • Homework - Collect throughput data for the past 3-4 weeks. How much work are you going to get done in the next 4 weeks?

• Session 2

  • Multiple item forecasting - Part 2 (Monte Carlo)

  • Homework - Use collected throughput data to run Monte Carlo and plan out releases 2, 4, and 6 weeks out. Also figure out when you can get 20, 40, and 60 items done.

• Session 3

  • Single item forecasting

  • Homework - Get start and end dates for items started in the past 3-4 weeks? What SLE would you offer and why? What does Ageing look like? Bring up Ageing in your daily and discuss.

• Session 4

  • Variability

  • Homework - Identify sources of variability in your system. Categorize them as special/common causes and come up with ways to address them. What are some “rules of the game” that you would

• Session 5

  • System Stability

  • Homework - What is your current WIP? What was your WIP 1 week ago? What was it 2 weeks ago? What is the trend? How does your system stability look at higher levels?

• Session 6 - Bonus. Class picks one of the topics below -

  • Bonus: Monte Carlo and Feature WIP

  • Bonus: Shewhart / Wheeler and PBCs

  • Bonus: Little's Law Deep Dive

  • Bonus: Cost of Delay Problems or Don't Be a Ditka

  • Bonus: The impact of choosing different percentages for different forecasts

  • Bonus: Various Monte Carlo Models

• Session 7 (Optional) 

  • Applying Predictability and Forecasting concepts in a Scrum context.

  • Pre-requisite - Read the Scrum Guide

All the Bonus sessions are available if you sign up for the advanced cohort. Those who have completed 5 cohort sessions or currently hold the PAM certification from ProKanban.Org, can purchase and join the Advanced Predictability and Forecasting. The link for this would be available soon.