Rally’s Team Planning page makes it easy
for your team to schedule prioritized work into
iterations according to your capacity,
giving you confidence in your ability to
execute your plan for the PI.
Use the Team Planning page
during release or iteration planning to collaborate with fellow team members as you
refine, estimate, rank, and schedule your Work Items
according to the velocity you’ve planned for each Iteration.
Now it’s crystal clear to see the work you can realistically do and the order in
which it should be done—without overcommitting your team.
To start, navigate to the Team
Planning page by selecting Plan, then Team Planning.
Before using this page, it’s important to have already
administered the Releases and Iterations for your Project from the Plan > Timeboxes page.
You will need Project Administrator permissions
to create Timeboxes, or perhaps your Workspace Administrator
has already created them for you.
To make changes to Work Items or to schedule them into an Iteration or Release,
you’ll need project edit permissions. To make changes to an Iteration’s
velocity, you’ll need at least Project Administrator permissions.
Select the timeframe that you will plan by choosing the Release in the dropdown menu.
The Team Planning page has three views that correspond to
the process you’ll use to plan your Iterations.
The Backlog View helps you identify the work your team will plan for the release,
and makes it easy to refine and prioritize that work.
The Planning View helps you schedule your prioritized Work Items
into Iterations based on the size of the work and the capacity of your team.
The Planned View gives your team and stakeholders an overview
of the work you’ve scheduled for each Iteration.
Let’s begin by getting a prioritized list of work ready to schedule.
First, let’s use the Backlog view.
The Backlog view shows you all the Work Items
that can be scheduled into an Iteration and that also fit
the filtering criteria specified on the page.
You may choose from some filter “presets” in the dropdown menu to get started.
For example, the Release Backlog shows Work Items
already assigned to the Release you’re planning.
Or, you may have unscheduled or unfinished work for Features to consider.
What about defects to fix?
This is a quick way to pull work for prioritization.
You may narrow down this work even more by selecting the Show
Filters button and creating additional filters.
Sort the Work Items by rank to prioritize them,
and make sure they have a plan estimate. You can edit it in-line here, along
with a few other fields. This will be part of the decision-making process
surrounding what will “fit” in an Iteration.
If you have Work Items with dependencies,
this will also be important to note. Establish dependencies
by selecting the Work Item ID or by selecting the gear
icon and choosing edit. Here you can indicate if a User Story is dependent
upon the completion of another User Story.
The dependencies feature is very important for making scheduling decisions.
When you have enough work for the Iterations you wish to plan,
you’re ready for the next step in the process.
Let’s move now to the Planning View.
As you can see, your Backlog of
possible Work Items to schedule is on the left,
and the Iteration Plan for your team is on the right.
In the right pane you will see the Iteration name, the duration of the Iteration,
any issues that are flagged,
the velocity for the Iteration,
and a visual indication of how the Iteration has been scheduled,
along with the percentage of capacity that has been scheduled for the Iteration.
At the bottom of the iteration list you’ll also see the Release Backlog,
that is, all the Work Items you’ve already assigned to a Release
but not an Iteration. There is also a quick filter
on the left for the Team Backlog to allow you to add more filters to narrow down your list.
In this case, I've used filters to omit
two to the items in the Release Backlog that needed further review.
Expand the iteration or the Release to
see any Work Items that have already been scheduled in the Timebox.
Have a discussion among members of the team to decide
how much capacity you’ll commit to for each iteration—taking into consideration
holidays, time off, events, all-day meetings, and
other large time consumers that are not related to work delivery.
Set the capacity for each iteration as a velocity
number that the team can commit to getting accepted in the iteration timeframe.
Once you’ve set the velocity for the Iterations you’re planning, you’re ready to
schedule Work Items.
To schedule a Work Item into an Iteration,
drag it to the Iteration, or select the gear icon next to the
unscheduled Work Item and set the Iteration that way.
As you bring each Work Item into the Iteration, check to make sure you’re not exceeding the
capacity your team agreed to for the Iteration.
You will see an indication of the type and amount of work you’re scheduling by the color
(if you’re associating colors with type of work or with features), and the
percentage of capacity scheduled.
If you schedule too much work for the velocity
you’ve planned, the Iteration Name will turn red as will your capacity percentage.
You will also see an alert in the issues column that you are over capacity.
It’s best to schedule work below 100%
capacity to account for scope growth.
Select the X next to the work item to return it to the Release Backlog,
or you may use the Gear menu to assign it to a later Iteration,
return it to the Release Backlog, or remove it from plan altogether
by unscheduling the Release and the Iteration.
Sometimes you have capacity for more work,
but the next Work Item in priority is too large
to schedule into the Iteration. Look to the next item in priority to
see if it makes sense to schedule it instead.
You see this warning whenever you have scheduled work items that have not been
estimated. Open the Iteration and add the estimates for the Work Items that need them.
This is important for reporting an accurate representation of your Iteration capacity.
Adjust your plan accordingly.
As you review your plan for the Iteration,
consider dependencies. You may need to
change the scheduling of a Work Item to a later Iteration if an earlier Work Item
needs to be finished first. Select the number in the Dependencies column
for details about dependencies associated with the Work Item.
Some teams like to administer Tasks as part of the Iteration Planning process.
You may view, add, or change tasks from
any of the Team Planning page views. Click the Tasks icon
(or the blank box in the Tasks column) to interact with the Tasks
dialog box. From here you may add, rerank,
change or delete tasks associated with the Work Item.
Select the X to return to the Team Planning page view.
Your team members and stakeholders can get a summary view of the Iteration plan by
selecting the Planned View. This view focuses on the right panel of the Planning
View, and presents all the work items scheduled in each Iteration
along with the capacity information. You’ll also see what remains
of the Release Backlog—the work that was considered for the
Release, but didn't fit in the Release.
Congratulations! You have just
learned how to create an Iteration Plan with your team using the Team Planning page.
For your next Iteration or Sprint planning meeting,
use the Team Planning page to schedule Work Items into the Iteration.
If you’re curious about how to use a similar process to plan your PI,
watch the Build Achievable Plans with Rally’s Capacity Planning video
and create a realistic plan for your next Program Increment.
To learn more about Rally and agile practices, check out our blog and
community, like this video and subscribe to our channel so you never miss new
content as it's added.