There is no Planning in Agile. Right?
Several times over the past few weeks, I’ve been told by people that there is no planning in Agile.
I believe the source of this misconception comes from the Agile Manifesto’s statement “Responding to change over following a plan“.
It does not say ‘instead of following a plan’.
I’d like to simply share a short and partial list of just a few examples of how and where planning may happen in an agile context.
In the hopes that a partial list will change this myth….
Mike Cohn, Agile Estimating and Planning –
http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/books/agile-estimating-and-planning
Release Planning (The Product Owner Board) – Dave Sharrock –
http://www.agile42.com/blog/2013/06/17/product-owner-board/
/blog/2013/06/17/product-owner-board/
Vision – James Shore – The Art of Agile Development –
http://www.jamesshore.com/Agile-Book/vision.html
Planning an experiment – The Lean Startup – Eric Reis –
http://theleanstartup.com/
Agile Strategy Map – agile42 –
http://www.agile42.com/en/agile-transition/agile-strategy-map/
I know this is an incomplete list. If you feel like a book or reference is screaming out as missing, please feel free to comment. My hopes are that someone new to this topic will eventually search the term “no planning in agile” and come across a huge list of material showing this not to be the case.
As a final note; Planning can go very wrong for people and teams if not done while remembering lean principles and agile values and principles. Please take any reference material listed as information and don’t turn it into religious doctrine.