Sprint Planning

Time-boxing gives us a way to better understand if and how we are delivering value to our customer. Breaking down the project into bit-sized pieces called user stories gives us a way to build towards outcomes we want to achieve for our customer. It also goes a long way in helping us monitor and evaluate our progress.

We time-box our work by creating user stories, breaking the stories down into a few core activities that need to happen in order to fulfill the stories, and choosing which of those tasks we can realistically take on each sprint.

We Create User Stories by Listening to our Stakeholders

At the beginning of the project, we ask why we doing this project and which key stakeholders are we doing it for. We put ourselves in their shoes to understand the outcomes they are looking for from the project, and work with them to validate these outcomes.

For these outcomes and stakeholders, we ask what “done looks like”, which becomes our final user story. We then ask if there are any user stories that need to happen before this user story.

Organizing these stories becomes the foundation of our sprints. Each sprint, we will ask which of these stories we can realistically take on, the tasks involved in completely those stories and what our definition of done will be.

Retrospectives

Retrospectives happen at different levels, starting from the task and output level, all the way up to the organization. Each retrospective is based on the same core building blocks: set the stage for the meeting, gather the relevant data, generate insights about the data, decide what to do about it, and close the retrospective. A simple diagram for capturing the positive and negative aspects of our work is a the sail and anchor—positive aspects put wind in our sails while negative aspects anchor us and impede our progress.

Stand-Up

Stand-Up is a form of retrospective that happens a few times every week (if not daily).  

For each project, we ask: what have we accomplished, what are we currently working on, and what (if any) obstacles are we facing? Any further discussion should be held until after stand-up, when only the necessary team members can gather. This gives each member of the team a comprehensive understanding of what the team is working on, and where they can provide support if necessary.

Sprint-Level

Every sprint we run a retrospective to review our accomplishments and plan for the next cycle.

For each project, we talk about what we like, lack and long for, in addition to discussing what we’re learning. This conversation informs our decision on which tasks and outputs we need to add to the Queue or move into Ready or W.I.P.. This enables the group to be intentional about what work they are taking on, and prevents the problems of projects sitting on the side of someone’s desk.

Project-Level

When we complete a project, we run a longer retrospective meeting to capture our learnings.

For each project, the team meets for one to two hours. We start by creating a timeline of our accomplishments. We then reflect on learning for individuals, the team, organization, and stakeholders. These learnings enable us to revisit our outcomes, understand which we have achieved and make sure the outcomes we’re working towards still make sense.

Organizational-Level

A few times every year, we run organization-wide retrospective to evaluate our progress.

Across all projects, the organization meets for a half day to discuss how we are incorporating learnings across project teams as well as the broader organization. This is a great opportunity to revisit our plan, fill in gaps any gaps we see for the next three to six months, and question our assumptions about the problem and our solution.

Estratega

Estratega

The Estratega Process for Advocacy Strategy in Public Policies responds to the need for better advocacy planning. Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente (FCI) developed Estratega after uncovering this need while collaborating with UNICEF. The process is made up of three components—a methodology (outlined below), a web platform (accessible at estratega.io), and a series of workshops—that work together to improve effectiveness of advocacy work.

The methodology is presented as a linear process, which makes it easy to follow. However, working through this process in the real world is rarely this linear. It’s important that we revisit previous steps and iterate on our plan as we learn new information.

STAGE 0—ORGANIZATIONAL FOCUS

This stage includes completing a broad analysis of the situation, developing or determining organizational priorities, and gathering any relevant background information for participants.

STAGE 1—PROBLEMS AND GOALS

This stage focuses on defining the problem, identifying causes of the problem, and specifying policy solutions that respond to the problem.

STAGE 2—OBJECTIVES

This stage begins by identifying objectives that are specific, measurable, attainable, results-oriented, and time-limited (S.M.A.R.T.), which are then prioritized.

STAGE 3—POLITICAL ECONOMY

This stage includes capturing the policy decision-making processes, mapping relevant actors and institutions, and identifying enabling factors and barriers.

STAGE 4—INTERMEDIATE OUTCOMES

This stage builds on the political economy work to formulate intermediate outcomes and articulate the theory of change.

STAGE 5—ASKS AND ACTIONS

This stage looks at the actors in each intermediate outcome in order to formulate asks, specify actions related to these asks, and agree on accountabilities.

STAGE 6—MONITORING AND EVALUATION

This stage includes checking and redefining indicators, monitoring impact and changes in the context, and how agile might be used to learn and adapt the plan.