Scrum and Deadlines

While providing operational support to the expansion stage software companies in OpenView’s venture capital investment portfolio, I often work with product and development teams on how to become more predictable. I also work with senior management teams on what they should expect from their product teams.

One contentious issue that comes up is deadlines in the context of Scrum.

Scrum teams sometimes say that because they are agile, and constantly adjusting to change, and committing to 4 week (or shorter) sprints, they cannot commit to longer term deadlines.

Management teams want exact release dates for the next 12 months.

Typically, the logjam is broken when the management team insists that the product team produce and commit to quarterly deadlines, and the team commits, only to miss those deadlines for the rest of the year.

I recommend a different approach:

1. The Scrum team needs to land several sprints in a row and determine what its stable velocity is.
2. Until the Scrum team knows its velocity, it refrains from making medium or long term commitments, and the management team accepts that for the time being.
3. In the mean time, product management provides a road map and a ready backlog that maps to it as far out into the future as it can given what it knows today.
4. Once the Scrum team knows its velocity, and has developed a comfort with its reference stories and estimation (this takes several sprints), it breaks down the backlog and estimates it (this will take time, and can take a while depending on how far into the future the backlog goes, and how ready it is for estimation).
5. Release dates can then be estimated by dividing the team’s proven velocity into the total backlog estimate.
6. A buffer is applied to these release dates, and over time the team’s accuracy in estimation is monitored and improved.
7. Backlog estimates are updated based on changes to the backlog, and the impact to release dates from the changes is available to the product manager for better decision making.
8. Release dates are modified based on changes to the backlog and team’s velocity (particularly sensitive to the team’s resources).

If the management team can’t afford to wait the amount of time these seven steps require, then it needs to prioritize and get very sharp on exactly what commitment it needs for what.

Instead of focusing on entire product releases, it should pick the one or two features that sales and marketing absolutely needs commitment on for some future date, and ask the development team to estimate those as accurately as possible.  Known velocity is still needed for true commitment.