Look Ahead Planning
Individual scrum teams are able to effectively manage projects using Agile where some of the upfront planning work is replaced by just in time delivery of feature definition, user stories and sprint executables. When multiple teams are involved, a deeper level of coordination is required to effectively manage deliverables known as look ahead planning.
Look ahead planning involves a rolling mechanism by which to refine and define which user stories will be included in sprints. Design and commitments are made for the current sprint cycle. After the first sprint is established, teams immediately begin discussions on the next one to two sprints for the purpose of aligning work across multiple scrum teams. Design and commitment is not finalized here. Dependencies are identified as teams review the upcoming sprint user stories to evaluate if work can be completed across multiple scrum teams with the feature order established by individual teams.
Teams have an opportunity to move user stories out of the next two iterations if it is determined that the cross-functional scrum teams cannot effectively deliver based on dependencies.
This is a rolling process, in that teams continue in this manner with the current sprint planning focusing on design and commitment while the next two focus on prioritization and dependencies.
Recommended Further Reading
The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course: