PMI-ACP Certification: Initiation and Requirements Gathering
Welcome to the 4th course of the Agile Project Management – The PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Practitioner) Certification Program. This course is focused on Agile Planning and more precisely on Project Initiating and Requirements Gathering.
Who will benefit from taking this course
This course is intended for project managers, program managers, or anyone who wants to efficiently participate in agile projects. It is aligned with the Agile Certified Practitioner exam objectives developed by the Project Management Institute® and Certified ScrumMaster learning objectives.
The course includes training videos, examples, exercices and quizes. And, if you take your time to go through all the learning materials this will entitle you to claim 5 PDU’s for the PMI certification exams and to maintain your PMI certification.
An agile development team uses rolling wave planning and progressive elaboration, refining and adjusting plans at various points throughout a project’s life cycle. Planning is beneficial because it reduces risk and uncertainty, improves decision-making, fosters trust, and makes it easier to pass on information to stakeholders.
Three levels of planning
Agile teams focus on three levels of planning. During release planning, the customer and developers collaborate to provide high-level information on what user stories, or features, and how many iterations, to include in a product release.
During iteration planning, a team conducts detailed planning of the tasks to complete in a specific iteration. This planning is informed by the results of previous iterations. Daily planning occurs during brief meetings, when developers discuss their progress, immediate plans, and any obstacles.
Release and iteration planning
In an agile approach, release planning involves gathering requirements, creating user stories, prioritizing stories, estimating stories, grouping stories, and setting a release date.
Iteration planning is more detailed. It involves updating requirements, confirming user stories and priorities, decomposing stories into tasks, and refining estimates before each new iteration begins.
A business case and a product vision
The first step in planning an agile project is developing a business case and a product vision. The business case is a short document outlining the opportunity that a project represents, the project’s goals and a strategy for achieving them, a project vision, milestones, the required investment, and the expected payback.
The product vision is a description of what will be delivered – which is encapsulated in a vision statement, of who will be involved in creating a product, and of how the work will be done.
A project scope and a use case
A project’s scope is the extent of the work it includes. Using an agile approach, a team controls project scope by focusing only on developing functionality that is of direct value to the customer.
A use case provides an overview of a project’s scope. It describes how users must be able to interact with a system, and the required results. It also describes exceptions, or the steps that must occur in response to system errors.
User stories
User stories break down the project’s high-level requirements into specific, discrete requirements for particular product functions. They’re usually expressed using the wording “As a <role>, I want to <do something> so that I can <achieve a result>.” An agile team may need to break large user stories, known as epics, into smaller stories as a project progresses. It may also group related user stories into themes.
This course will have two main sections. The first one is called Introduction to Agile Planning and the second Initiating and Scoping an Agile Project.
After completing the first section, Introduction to Agile Planning, you be able to:
- recognize the levels of agile planning,
- understand the benefits of having a plan for an agile project,
- identify activities that take place during the different phases of agile planning.
After completing the second section, Initiating and Scoping an Agile Project, you will be able to:
- understand the essential elements of a business case,
- identify the elements of product vision,
- analyze an example of a use case,
- develop examples of user stories.
So, thank you for considering this course! Now, go ahead, and hit that “Take This Course” button. And, see you on the inside.
Introduction to Agile Planning
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A day in the life of an agile project managerA day in the life of an agile project manager
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Course Choice, Skill Development and Prior Knowledge -
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Course Overview
Welcome to the 4th course of the Agile Project Management - The PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Practitioner) Certification Program. This one is focused on Agile Planning and more precisely on Project Initiating and Requirements Gathering.
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Effective Learning
Effective Learning
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FAQs
FAQs
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Program Overview
This video will help you understand better the content of the other courses that will form this Agile Project Management - The PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Practitioner) Certification Program. And, just to be clear, because what I call section in the larger Certification Program, is a course by itself, let’s see what every section includes.
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Course IntroductionWelcome to the 4th course of the Agile Project Management - The PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Practitioner) Certification Program. This one is focused on Agile Planning and more precisely on Project Initiating and Requirements Gathering.
Initiating and Scoping an Agile Project
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The Agile Manifesto and Agile Principles
The Agile Manifesto and Agile Principles
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Benefits of planning
Project planning involves thinking about how to complete a project within a certain timeframe, usually with defined stages and with designated resources. The success of a project will depend in part on the effort and skill you apply during planning.
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The Science of Better Learning
The Science of Better Learning
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Initial Backlog Ranked for Changes
Initial Backlog Ranked for Changes
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Levels of agile planning
Project planning occurs at various levels, each providing a different degree of detail and occurring at different times in the project development life cycle.
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Roadmap to Value
Roadmap to Value
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Agile planning activities
Agile project planning is cyclical and ongoing, with different types of planning repeated throughout the project life cycle. Project planning is usually either date-driven or feature-driven. In a date-driven - or time-boxed - project, the release date is set but the set of features that will be included in the product release is uncertain.
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Planning an agile project
A project team is updating the web site of QuickTravel, an outdoor adventure company. The team's instructions are to change the site's look and feel, and to add search, reservation, and payment tools. The team knows what to build, but it is not sure why the customer has requested the changes or which functionality is the most important. As a result, the team runs over budget and develops a product that doesn't fully align to the customer's business objectives.
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Uncertainty and Compelxity Model
Uncertainty and Compelxity Model
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Introduction to Agile Planning
Recognize the levels of agile planning, understand the benefits of having a plan for an agile project, and identify activities that take place during the different phases of agile planning
Agile Planning: Initiation and Requirements Gathering
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Creating a business case
Whereas traditional project management is plan-driven, agile planning is value-driven. Value in this context refers to the financial worth of a project to the customer. The purpose of a business case is to confirm that a project will create value for the customer right from the start. A business case addresses questions about a proposed project's economic, technical, operational, and political impact on the customer.
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Relationship between change management and agile
Relationship between change management and agile
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Elements of a product vision
For an agile project, a product vision describes how a product can capitalize on the opportunities and fulfill the goals outlined in the business case. It should provide all stakeholders, including developers, with a common understanding of what's required, without limiting the team's creativity in finding solutions.
Some may think that with an agile methodology, the customer can simply take an "I'll know it when I see it" approach to specifying what's required. However, this would make planning and estimation nearly impossible.
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Defining project scope
Agile teams are highly responsive to changes in customer expectations and market conditions. However, an agile project isn't without boundaries. Time and money, for example, aren't unlimited - so there have to be some limits on what can change, and the changes can't go on forever.
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Developing use cases
A project manager defines the scope of a traditionally managed project using a work breakdown structure, or WBS. An agile team, however, defines and manages scope using techniques for capturing requirements, such as use cases.
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Formatting user stories
Use cases provide a big-picture overview of a system and of a project's scope. They can, however, be quite detailed and may not be very suitable for use in planning and estimating. An alternative technique, possibly used in addition to a high-level use case, involves breaking down project requirements into user stories. Each user story describes a specific, required functionality, which is defined from a user's perspective. Together all the user stories for a project provide a detailed description of the project's requirements.
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A user story and acceptance criteria
A user story and acceptance criteria
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Practical Activity: Crafting a Business Case with User Stories
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Initiating and Scoping an Agile Project
Understand the essential elements of a business case, identify the elements of product vision, analyze an example of a use case, and develop examples of user stories.
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Concepts, Insights and Inquiries
Bonus - Agile Key Exam Concepts
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Course project (optional)
Course project (optional).
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Agile Planning - Project Initiating and Requirements Gathering
You just finished the 4th course of the Agile Project Management - The PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Practitioner) Certification Program.
This one was focused on Agile Planning and more precisely on Project Initiating and Requirements Gathering.
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Agile Planning: Initiation and Requirements Gathering
Course wrap-up and next steps.
