Turn your project plan to an effective plan by incorporating a few practices of Scrum & XP

A well-defined roadmap creates a solid foundation for any project, and that is done by creating a project plan at the start of every project. Regardless of methodology used or recommended, planning is necessary for making any project successful. Project planning requires time and effort that can sometimes make the initial phase longer than required, which may make executives and managers anxious – especially in a tight scheduled large-scale project having multiple unstable requirements that are expected to be delivered on time and launched in a competitive market.

However, in a small project with fixed timeline, it has to be quick yet efficient in a way that all team members are aware of their goals and keep them on track as well.

Planning in Scrum

Scrum teams hold a ‘Sprint Planning Meeting’ at the beginning of each sprint to discuss the scope of the project. During the meeting, the team will select highest priority items to be added in the product backlog that further burns down to sprint backlog. Development team then commits to deliver sprint backlog tasks within the sprint. Mostly, it is done in a four hour time window that plans the duration of a sprint and its activities. This is extremely suitable for time-boxed project when teams know that final product has to be delivered in a short duration of time.

Sprint Planning Meeting

Planning in Extreme Programming (XP)

Combining this with ‘Release’ and ‘Iteration Planning’ practices of XP, these make a perfect combination of practices for creating the roadmap for any tight scheduled that may be a large-scale project, as these practices focuses on all four variables that creates a successful plan: scope, resources, time and quality.

It will have extremely short release cycles that will divide the requirements of that project into user stories; minimizing dependencies so that all the stories can be implemented in arbitrary order. This will not only save time, but will also not affect the project when whole team does not sit together at one place.

Extreme Planning (XP) Planning Loop

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