Agile Estimating and Planning (Robert C. Martin Series)

This is the eBook version of the printed book. Detailed, Proven Techniques for Estimating and Planning Any Agile Project. Agile Estimating and Planning is the definitive, practical guide to estimating and planning agile projects. In this book, Agile Alliance cofounder Mike Cohn discusses the philosophy of agile estimating and planning and shows you exactly how to get the job done, with real-world examples and case studies. Concepts are clearly illustrated and readers are guided, step by step, toward how to answer the following questions: What will we build? How big will it be? When must it be done? How much can I really complete by then? You will first learn what makes a good plan-and then what makes it agile.Using the techniques in Agile Estimating and Planning, you can stay agile from start to finish, saving time, conserving resources, and accomplishing more. Highlights include:- Why conventional prescriptive planning fails and why agile planning works- How to estimate feature size using story points and ideal days-and when to use each- How and when to re-estimate- How to prioritize features using both financial and nonfinancial approaches- How to split large features into smaller, more manageable ones- How to plan iterations and predict your team's initial rate of progress- How to schedule projects that have unusually high uncertainty or schedule-related risk- How to estimate projects that will be worked on by multiple teamsAgile Estimating and Planning supports any agile, semiagile, or iterative process, including Scrum, XP, Feature-Driven Development, Crystal, Adaptive Software Development, DSDM, Unified Process, and many more. It will be an indispensable resource for every development manager, team leader, and team member.

User review
Essential reading for Agile development
This book explains the in and outs of Agile development in an extremely concise and clear manner.
Essential reading for agile team

User review
Comperhensive , practical and easy to read
I've been in the Agile world for a while now, and this is not my first read on the subject, yet I got a lot of new insights and understandings on the planning and estimating process in the Agile/SCRUM methodology.
Real everyday questions and dilemmas are addressed here in a straight forward way, supplying you with a toolbox of ideas and knowledge-base on these issues.
This one goes straight into my `MUST READ` list.

User review
An excellent Agile Approach, blending Scrum, XP and other agile methodologies
This book is a must for any software project manager. If you are new to Agile, then you will appreciate the beginning chapters which go into great detail as to why agile is better than traditional waterfall approaches. I really like Mike's agile receipe, a blend of Scrum, XP, and Evo. If you are not familiar with these methods, I suggest reading a bit about them before reading Mike's book.

I would have preferred more detail and real life experience in the role modeling and user story sections. I've outlined some suggestions here at my blog: [,,.]. I'd also would have liked to seen an example for hardware engineering.

I definitely can't wait to read his next book!

User review
Excellent book for project managers
This book has very good explanations and examples about how to bridge the gap between classic project management and agile project management. For those of us project managers that have few experience managing teams and projects in the agile way, I consider this is a must read book. Most of the books are very focused at the agile practices, and how the team should apply these new practices, but don't address issues very important like budgeting, top management reporting, etc. that seem to be at odds with the agile software development. But Mike has found a way to bridge both worlds, giving you tools to keep track of your projects and be able to communicate status to top management in an effective way.

I have not tried all his recommendations yet, but the ones I have already tried are working as expected.

Definitely it is an excellent book for project managers that are used to manage projects in the classic way and are facing the challenge of change their mindset to the agile way.

User review
Good and practical, I DO recommend it.
I had experience estimating but I wanted a deeper and wider knowledge of the `black science` of estimation.

So that I bought both this book for specifically focus on agile and `Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art` by Steve McConnell for a wider vision of estimation.

Both did their job, his book is very practical and I DO recommend it because:
1. It's very well structured both in format and content, so it's easy to read.
2. It talks about scheduling, planning for value (e.g. Kano Model).
3. It justifies very well the benefits of the agile approach.

So if you're a Project Manager who needs to plan and track projects using agile methods like Scrum, this book may give you 75% of what you need to know.

Alex Ballarin
IT Consultant
Cynertia Consulting, Barcelona, Spain