Delivery Process

Overview

In this lesson, we'll discuss the entire delivery process, from planning to deployment. We'll also discuss how the developers, stakeholders and team leads interact with each other to build software that runs smoothly.

Prioritization

Prioritization is how the various lines of business argue for the use of the limited development resources (the CEO has the casting vote on these). This is where the stakeholders and product owners get to create an ordered list of stories to be worked on in the next sprint. The aim is to include enough stories to match the average velocity of the last three sprints.

Velocity refers to the number of points of stories that were completed within the sprint (incomplete stories do not count). Stories are only normally accepted if they have previously been refined. Refinement happens earlier in a distinct meeting where a subset of the developers and a product owner ensure that the stories are well understood, are correctly sliced, and have some acceptance criteria. It's normal for unfinished work to be given top priority. There's always the option that a story could be removed, but this removal does have a cost. 

Planning 

Once an ordered list of candidate items (as well as a few choice items at the top of the backlog) has been created through prioritization, we move to planning. Planning includes the full development team and the appropriate product owners. The product owner describes each story in turn, answers questions, and then the team votes. Votes and questions repeat until a consensus is achieved. This determines the stories in the sprint. Sometimes, things that have been requested by prioritization are excluded due to an unforeseen dependency requirement.

Before a card was accepted it had to satisfy:

• Refinement has happened on the card

• All required information and assets are attached to the card

• Some acceptance Criteria should be defined

• The description of the story has been ...