Chapter 7. The Speculate Phase

Plans are guides, not straightjackets. Agile teams plan, but they recognize that reality always intrudes. Plans in this context serve as a vehicle for embracing change, not blocking it. Plans have to adapt because the customers’ understanding of their requirements changes, because estimates of work effort vary, because people arrive or depart from the team, and for a variety of other reasons. Plans are both conjectures about the future—our best guess at what will occur given the information we have—and guides to the future—determining what we want to occur and making it happen. Development generates new information that in turn creates the need to replan.

Planning is an important activity, but speculating is a ...

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