Agile Estimating and Planning

Chapter 21. Communicating about Plans

“The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.”

—Joseph Priestley

In this chapter, we will look at some specific ways to communicate about plans. However, more important than specifically what we communicate is how we approach the work of communicating about estimates and plans. We want all communication, but especially communication about estimates and plans, to be frequent, honest, and two-way.

Frequent communication about plans is important because of how often an agile plan is updated. For example, even if a team does rolling lookahead planning (as described in Chapter 18, “Planning the Multiple-Team Project”), their release plan may show only what will be developed in the next ...