Use POAD to plan our a Sprint for a Series of Tasks of key feature

You have a great idea or group of tasks. How do you get it going into the ‘agile parlance’? Decomposed, groomed, pointed, story, parent epics, sprints. Yet also make sure it has a purpose, clear objectives, you know the activities, and what needs to be delivered. Yet, you don’t want to focus initially on the timeline and come out with a waterfall plan. You want to break down value-add work.

Given 75% of IT projects fail (This is an often-cited statistic over the last 20-30 years, so it must be true (see the last bullet in this article)), a lot of times, it is due to scope creep, and thereafter, features that aren’t tied to a purpose.

If you are a senior individual in project planning, you may be reading this so you can say “Cool, [insert name for Boss or Newbie], I like your idea. Here, read this, and give me your Purpose, Objectives, Activities, and Deliverables (POAD) in less than a hour, and let’s see what we can knock out in two weeks.”

When you are grooming (cleaning up) an idea, breaking it down (decomposing), the goal is to make sure features are tied back to what the purpose is (value) and the objectives (e.g. what is minimum viable (Must Have), and what is needed immediately after that (Should Have) and what could be added (Could Have) or nice to have if successful (Nice to Have) – Snuck in the MoSCoW Prioritization).

You are needed to help quell and balance the excitement to the must haves, dependencies on the bigger implementation picture and tie back to value. You are there to help capture assumptions, risks and bring cost and time pragmatism. POAD brings a simple facilitation and capture tool which can be in a document or notepad before creating the tickets which get us all a bit myopic.

OK – what is a POAD? – Purpose, Objectives, Activities, Deliverables

POAD – Pronounce it like Poh-Add (Should harken this RO-ADS scene)

After the brainstorming, we ask the task lead to capture in 1 hour the purpose, objectives, activities, and deliverables (POAD) using our POAD skeleton 1-pager template. This simply takes the brainstorming and makes sure we have covered the bases for the project proposal. We take a 1-hour planning task to propose a project or one-time task over a week. This can be captured in a document, notepad or a sheet – before you drop it in your favorite scrum or kanban board.

Take an Epic (Purpose), break it into user stories (Objectives), figure out tasks for the story (Activities), and agree to the sprint outcome (Deliverables). Put those four words together, and you get the acronym called POAD. Using a POAD, in 1 hour, without learning a whole new jargon, you can use what most people know in making a project proposal.

This is just a lightweight way to avoid that “Hey this will be cool, we can crush it in two weeks, but turns out, you didn’t think of X, Y, and Z” problem. Of course, it is all risk-based, so if you believe you have minimized the risk, or have very little impact if you are late or over costs or under-quality, etc., then skip it, and just jump on in.

The rest is an exercise you can do in 30 minutes to guide the agile idea decomposing into a great epic with well thought out, groomed, and aligned stories. Good luck!

Purpose

The premises behind MBT – the line of sight is still applicable. What is the purpose of this 2-week idea?

• Who are you doing this for?
• What do they say needs addressed?
• Also, what is the Goal?
• Furthermore, what is the end solution?
• What are the steps?
• What do you need to get done?
• And what does it cost?

Make a statement that addresses scope, time, qualities, and cost

• Scope – what is the end product of the project through what 3-4 major value chain steps
• Time – how long the project is, calendar time
• Qualities – what the customer outcomes (effectivity) and/or business outcomes (efficiencies) are
• Cost – what resources are used (people, purchases)

Objectives

Mention the 3-4 value chain steps on how you’ll achieve your purpose. Capture the measures for each of the qualities by each value chain step, communicating if you are achieving in an iterative, waterfall, or agile manner – or waterfall agile. Example Steps in a value chain are (Aware, Familiar, Consider, Purchase; Acquire, Produce, Generate, Deliver; Find, Get, Use; Extract, Transform, Load; Model, View, Control)

Activities

Whether agile or waterfall, organize your tasks by Discover, Define, Design, Develop/Do, and Debrief steps, noting the Level of effort in time.

Deliverables

Make sure you have deliverables that address the scope of each activity and address the full stack of possible deliverables – Performance, Process, Data, Application, Technology, Management, and Security. For each deliverable, note the calendar days from the start take the activity time multiply it by three, and then add any immovable time gaps (i.e. vacation, other projects, events). Why Multiply by three? Well, we normally multiply by two because we follow the theory that most people estimate the “do” part, and not the “prepare” and “accept” parts. These steps add up to 50% each of the effort, then add another one for weekends and sick time.

Go For It – Final Tips

• Below is a template. Once you have conducted your brainstorming session, copy it to keep it to one page. Start with 1 hour, then review with your task lead.
• Use the timebox of 1 hour to keep the scope, project goals, and time spent on it humble. Otherwise, the scope creep monster will get you like the other 75%.
• The skeleton will help you see your normal predilections and biased weaknesses from your brainstorm, but saying out loud to others will help even more.
• During the review, edit it and promise yourselves to keep to less than 2 pages and less than 1 hour review.

Project Proposal POAD Template (Project Size: Very Small)

Purpose (Nor more than 2-3 sentences)

In X weeks, using W staff, we’ll deliver Y which makes customer more effective by Z and business more efficient by Q

Objectives (No more than 5)

Activities

Deliverables