information radiators Archives - World Of Agile

Risk Burn Down Chart

Amit Kulkarni — Sat, 16 Jul 2016 17:21:04 +0000

Risk Burn Down Chart

Risk Burndown graphs are very useful Communication Tool for seeing if the total project risk is increasing or decreasing over time. It allows stakeholders to see instantly if we are reducing project risk.

There are two key pieces of information which the Risk Burndown Graph shows immediately:

Whether the overall level of risk in the project or program is decreasing over time (are we reducing project risk?)
Whether individual risks are increasing in severity over time and whether new risks are being introduced.

ExampleIn the example below, we can see that

· Funds Shortage increases as the project progresses. Hence Severity of this risk becomes more

· The risk severity of Visas of Offshore Resources not getting processed on time decreases as the time progresses

· The Risk Severity of Availability of Database Architect goes down over time

· The risk “Delivery of Servers on Time” increases over time since the hardware vendor delays the delivery of Servers. As Project project progresses, if the vendor delays further then the severity becomes very high.

· Risk of Changing Requirements goes down over time since customer gets clarity on requirement. Hence the risk severity also goes down

· As the projects progresses, the risk of Availability of Expert Developers goes down and hence severity also goes down.

The post Risk Burn Down Chart appeared first on World Of Agile.

Risk Boards

Amit Kulkarni — Wed, 13 Jul 2016 17:24:16 +0000

Visit Blog Home

Risk Boards

Risk Boards is another powerful Information Radiator used to Communicate the status of Risks in a Agile Project This is used to make the Risks transparent to the Stakeholders. In the illustration shown here, The Risk Board indicates

The Identified Risks
Their Probability
Impacts
Planned Risk Responses

This board could be reviewed on a daily basis during the standup meeting or during the end of sprint or during the retrospective

The post Risk Boards appeared first on World Of Agile.

Burn Up Chart

Amit Kulkarni — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 17:14:03 +0000

Visit Blog Home

Burn Up Chart

A burn up chart tracks progress towards a projects completion. In the simplest form of burn up chart there are two lines on the chart:

A total work line (the project scope line)
A work completed line

A burnup chart clearly shows both completed work and project scope. The project will be completed when the lines meet. The vertical axis is amount of work, and is measured in units customized to your own project. Some common units are number of tasks, estimated hours or story points (in agile project management methodologies). The horizontal axis is time, usually measured in days. At each day you can see the amount of work completed and the total amount of work. The distance between the two lines is thus the amount of work remaining. When the two lines meet, the project will be complete. This is a powerful measure of how close you are to completion of the project, similar to a burn down chart. Regularly checking progress charts such as burn down charts or burn up charts is an important part of project management, agile, scrum or otherwise. These charts can allow you to instantly identify certain types of problems, such as scope creep or a deviation from the planned project path. These problems can then be discussed and corrective action can be taken at an early stage, rather than when it is too late, the hallmark of an effective project manager. Sharing these charts with customers can also build confidence and trust in both your management, and the progress of the project as a whole. Burn up charts are particularly commonly used in agile and scrum software development methodologies. The advantage of a burn up chart over a burn down chart is the inclusion of the scope line. It clearly tracks when work has been added to or removed from the project. It also allows you to visualize a more realistic completion date for the project, by extending a trend line from the scope as well as the completion line. Where the two trend lines meet is the estimated time of completion. The scope line allows you as a manager to easily spot where work is being added which will affect the completion date. Whether this work is being added by the client or the team, it is an important signal that the completion date may need to be moved in response. The scope line also tracks where work is being removed to meet a fixed deadline. Again this is important to know as it may impact the quality or functionality of the project, and is something that needs to be clearly discussed with the client and team. Although a typical burn up chart only has two lines, other lines are sometimes included. Firstly an ‘ideal’ line may be included. This shows the completion necessary at each day to meet the deadline. You can then tell if the project is ahead of or behind schedule by whether it is above or below the ideal line, and the distance gives you an idea as to how far ahead or behind schedule it is. (The ideal line is usually based on the most recent available total scope for simplicity) burn up chart with ideal line A burn up chart with an ideal line, showing where the project is ahead of and behind schedule. Another line that is sometimes included is the required burn up line. This line shows how much work must be completed to meet the deadline, given the current scope. Lastly, several burn up charts can be superimposed on top of one another. This is typically done for multi stage projects, such as release versions or development sprints in a software project. The scope lines are cumulatively stacked, whilst the completed line is either combined for all releases, or only for the next release and previously completed releases on any given day. The advantage of this layout is that it is clear when work is being shifted from one sprint to the next, as opposed to being added to the total project scope. More advanced, but also more complicated to read than a burn up chart is a cumulative flow diagram.

The post Burn Up Chart appeared first on World Of Agile.

Cumulative Flow Diagram

Amit Kulkarni — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 16:31:34 +0000

Visit Blog Home

Cumulative Flow Diagram

Cumulative Flow Diagrams are a wonderful tool to see trends and find bottlenecks in your delivery process. They are often used in Agile environments. Consider the example of a Website Development Project below. You will see a graph below. It shows the number of user stories in each of you status categories, for the time period you have selected. If you draw a horizontal line at any point on this graph you will see a snapshot of your User Stories on a given date (how many with status “Done,” “TO-DO,” “Testiing,” etc.). So the CFD is really just a picture of your user stories by status over time. But this picture can tell you a lot about your development process.

The post Cumulative Flow Diagram appeared first on World Of Agile.

Burn Down Chart

Amit Kulkarni — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 16:29:25 +0000

Visit Blog Home

Burn Down Chart

Release Burn Down Chart is used by the Product Owner to track the Release.

Burn down chart is a good information Radiator which represents data quickly in a chart format. A sample burn down chart for a completed sprint, showing remaining effort and tasks for each of the sprint is shown below. The sprint burn down chart is a publicly displayed chart showing remaining work in the sprint backlog. Updated every day, it gives a simple view of the sprint progress. It also provides quick visualizations for reference. There are different types of burndown, for example

The release burndown chart that shows the amount of work left to complete the target commitment for a Product Release (normally spanning through multiple sprints) and the alternative release burndown chart, which basically does the same, but clearly shows scope changes to Release Content, by resetting the baseline.
The Sprint burndown chart that shows the amount of work left in a Sprint to achieve a Sprint goal
A Risk Burndown Chart which shows the amount of Risk impact pending at this point in time.

The post Burn Down Chart appeared first on World Of Agile.

Information Radiators

Amit Kulkarni — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 16:37:03 +0000

Visit Blog Home

Information Radiators

Information radiators are meant to display information at a public place so that the information can be noticed by as many people as possible without making a conscious effort to do so. The idea of information radiator was invented by Alister Cockburn, who was a big believer in effective and timely communication. Information Radiators should display the current information about the project whatever is critical for the team to learn. It could include Schedule, tasks, issues, progress etc.

The Most common forms of Information Radiators are

TaskBoards or Kanban Boards
Big Visible Charts such as Burn Down Charts
Street Lights and Lava Lamps
Characteristics of Information Radiators which make the Information Radiators work
Simplicity : The information Radiators should be simple to read and understand
Stark : Should display the progress and expose problems. Errors should not be masked, instead, they should be used to improve performance.
Current : Information should always be current. The artifacts should be updated frequently.
Transient : The information should not be there on the chart for too long. Once the problem is rectified, it should be removed from the chart or board.
Influencial : The information displayed should help the team to take actions and decisions.
Visbile : the information should be easily visible. There should be no special effort to see the information.
Minimal Information : The information should be sufficient but minimalistic. There is no point in showing a truckload of information.

Please refer to the following links to know more about Information Radiators

The post Information Radiators appeared first on World Of Agile.