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beastcoast | 2 years ago
- make an operational plan (OP) for the entire year, which sums up all the HC on your team
- figure out your goals for the year
- have some senior engineers estimate those goals in # of HC (usually 0.5 HC is the lowest granularity)
- add up the HC, prioritize the goals and figure out the cut line against your budget for the year
- when the new year rolls around, start execution. Launch dates are usually set by quarter, with the majority launching by Q3
- individual teams have complete leeway to use whatever project estimation techniques they want. It really doesn’t matter at all. Even waterfall is “fine”. All that matters is whether they can deliver the goals they signed up for in their OP.
- if a goal goes off the rails, report a “traffic light status” (red/yellow/green) and path to green, and engage leadership accordingly to reset expectations.
People accuse this process of being too waterfall / unagile, but it’s actually really helpful in centering the deliverables with business value, while giving teams extreme autonomy to achieve those goals. Mature businesses think in terms of quarters and bottom lines, not sprints and story points.
justeleblanc|2 years ago