RE: Practice: Quarterly Cycle

Oh! I like themes,  we kind of use them now when we plan ahead.  Nice to
have a word for it. 

Regards,

Keith

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kent Beck [mailto:kentb-ihVZJaRskl1bRRN4PJnoQQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: Monday, 20 December 2004 10:31 a.m.
> To: xpbookdiscussiongroup-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [xpe2e] Practice: Quarterly Cycle
> 
> 
> I apologize for not posting a practice for the past two 
> weeks. Here is the next practice:
> 
> Plan work a quarter at a time. Once a quarter reflect on the 
> team, the project, its progress, and its alignment with larger goals.
>   During quarterly planning:
>   * Identify bottlenecks, especially those controlled outside 
> the team.
>   * Initiate repairs.
>   * Plan the theme or themes for the quarter.
>   * Pick a quarter's worth of stories to address those themes.
>   * Focus on the big picture, where the project fits within 
> the organization.
> 
>   A season is another natural, widely shared timescale to use 
> in organizating time for a project. Using a quarter as a 
> planning horizon synchronizes nicely with other business 
> activities that occur quarterly.
> Quarters are also a comfortable interval for interaction with 
> external suppliers and customers.
> 
>   The separation of "themes" from "stories" is intended to 
> address the tendency of the team to get focused and excited 
> about the details of what they are doing without reflecting 
> on how this week's stories fit into the bigger picture. 
> Themes also fit well into larger-scale planning such as 
> drawing marketing roadmaps.
> 
>   Quarters are also a good interval for team reflection, 
> finding gnawing-but-unconscious bottlenecks. You can also 
> propose and evaluate long-running experiments quarterly.
> 
> 
> 
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