Agile at Work/ Driving Productive Agile Meetings -2A- Planning the release schedule

Unlike many projects that come together in the end for a grand unveiling, Agile methodology is able to deliver working aspects every sprint, slowly building up the product bit by bit. With a product owner prioritizing work during each sprint, the team does not need to worry about a customer that can’t really define their project. Over time, the product owner can  direct new features and improve the strategy each sprint. Expectation gaps are formed the agile team delivers something that is inconsistent with what the organization seeks, and to remove this gap, teams can utilize the product, release, and sprint backlogs. Each of these backlogs can be expanded on with the assistance of the customer where they can give flexibility and insight where they see fit. To give the organization stronger commitments to sprint deliverables, the release backlog is used to come to an agreement with the product owner on suggested changes. From there, the owner can go from the product to the release backlog and put a hold on any substantial changes. Further changes can be locked completely with the sprint backlog, where items are always set. But as a team, and specifically the scrum master, everyone should be aware of the problems that can occur by relying to much on each backlog, and should be always communicating with the product owner.

Another technique for scheduling a team release is to make a ROVe release date, which acts as a rough order of value for a project. A positive to this choice is that it helps the organization stay committed to working with the value of a deliverable that Agile methodology can ensure. Things can still be altered during this development, but planning with ROVe will keep the team focused on the end result. Being able to change and discover is the strength of agile, and using any of these techniques can give freedom to organizations and teams. Some may relinquish more flexibility and insight to final implementations as long as teams come to an understanding and compromise. Others may want to hand over freedom to a product owner to bring the highest product value, and for this they may want to choose a ROVe release schedule. Any of these choices can help a team, it just comes down to what each is willing to handle to the best of their capacity.

Works Cited

"Planning the Release Schedule." Lynda.com - from LinkedIn, www.lynda.com/Business-Skills-		tutorials/Planning-release-schedule/175075/437994-4.html. Accessed 17 Nov. 2017.

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