Accurate Agile Planning
Answer “How Much By When?” With A Credible Plan
Accurate Agile Planning is a private workshop that helps teams create credible delivery forecasts, plan under uncertainty, and have better conversations about scope, timing, risk, and tradeoffs.
Chosen by companies in SaaS, Healthcare, Government, Consulting, Financial Services, Retail, Energy, and more.
Planning That Creates False Confidence
- Teams struggle to answer “When will it be done?”
- Delivery dates regularly slip
- Stakeholders expect unrealistic precision from estimates
- Teams are uncomfortable planning beyond the next sprint
- Forecasts are viewed with skepticism
- Planning conversations become tense, repetitive, or overly focused on defending dates
Planning That Supports Better Decisions
- Create credible forecasts for fixed-date, fixed-scope, and mixed-constraint work
- Communicate plans using accuracy rather than false precision
- Estimate more consistently without long, unproductive debates
- Make uncertainty visible before it becomes expensive
- Improve conversations about scope, timing, risk, and tradeoffs
- Help stakeholders understand what is likely, what is uncertain, and what decisions need to be made
Why This Workshop Is Different
What Teams Will Be Able To Do
Create Credible Delivery Forecasts — Answer “how much by when” with defensible reasoning based on estimates, known work, uncertainty, and delivery assumptions.
Estimate Quickly And Consistently — Use story points effectively without turning estimation into a long debate about false precision.
Account For Unknown Work — Recognize overlooked, emergent, and uncertain work so plans are not built only around what is already visible.
Plan Under Real Constraints — Build useful plans for fixed-date, fixed-scope, and mixed-constraint situations.
Communicate Tradeoffs Clearly — Help stakeholders understand what is possible, what is uncertain, and where decisions about scope, timing, or risk need to be made.
How The Workshop Works
Accurate Agile Planning is a practical, exercise-driven workshop. Participants learn techniques for estimating, forecasting, and release planning through examples, discussion, and hands-on planning scenarios.
The focus is on helping teams and leaders make better decisions when scope, timing, and priorities are uncertain. Participants learn how to use estimates and forecasts to discuss tradeoffs, explain risk, and avoid turning early plans into fixed promises.
- Private workshop for teams and organizations
- Typically delivered in one day
- Live online or in person
- Configured around your planning challenges
- Useful for teams, product owners, Scrum Masters, leaders, and stakeholders
- Optional post-workshop support with your backlog, delivery history, and forecasts
Workshop Outline
- What agile planning is for
- Estimating with story points
- Milestone and release planning
- Planning for what you do not know
- Buffering critical plans
- Getting faster and better at estimating
- Communicating about estimates and plans
Tools And Resources Participants Continue Using
Participants continue to have access to tools that support planning beyond the workshop, including:
- MGS AI Toolkit for planning questions, backlog item feedback, story splitting, and coaching guidance
- Planning Poker® for collaborative estimation
- Plan Visualizer for exploring delivery forecasts
- Practical planning resources participants can continue using after the workshop
Agile Planning Guidance Shaped By Decades Of Experience
This workshop is grounded in the experience behind Agile Estimating And Planning, Mike Cohn’s widely used book on estimating, forecasting, release planning, and planning under uncertainty.
Mountain Goat Software has spent more than 25 years helping teams and organizations improve how they estimate, forecast, and plan in real-world conditions across industries, team types, and organizational cultures.
When you learn agile planning with Mountain Goat, you learn from practitioners who have worked directly with teams to create more credible forecasts, improve estimation conversations, and answer “how much by when” with more confidence.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is This Workshop Mostly About Story Points?
Story points are part of the workshop, but the larger goal is better planning. Teams learn how to use estimates, forecasts, and uncertainty to make better decisions about scope, timing, risk, and tradeoffs.
Can This Help Us Forecast More Than One Sprint Ahead?
Yes. The workshop is designed to help teams plan beyond the next sprint, including fixed-date, fixed-scope, and mixed-constraint situations.
Should Stakeholders Or Leaders Attend?
Often, yes. Planning problems are rarely only team problems. Stakeholders and leaders who rely on forecasts benefit from understanding how uncertainty, assumptions, and tradeoffs affect delivery expectations.
Will We Work With Our Own Backlog Or Delivery History?
The workshop uses practical examples and planning scenarios to teach the core techniques. Optional post-workshop support can then help teams apply those techniques directly to their own backlog, delivery history, and forecasting challenges.
Can This Be Customized For Our Organization?
Yes. The workshop can be configured based on your planning challenges, team experience, delivery constraints, and the kinds of forecasting conversations your organization needs to improve.
Can This Help When We Already Have A Delivery Date?
Yes. The workshop covers how to plan when a date is fixed, when scope is fixed, or when both are constrained. Teams learn how to make uncertainty visible, forecast what is realistic, and have better conversations about scope, timing, and tradeoffs.