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Rolling Wave Planning
What is Rolling Eave Planning? It is an iterative planning technique, which should tell you that we’re really delving into the realm of Agile, where we’ve got iterations and we’re delivering in increments. This is where rolling wave planning can come into it, because in the near term it is planned in detail, so things that are coming up quite close are planned in great detail, while the further work way out here for example is planned at a higher level, where we just want a basic idea of the stuff coming up way off in the distance.
Rolling Wave Planning is a form of progressive elaboration. Because of that, it’s applicable to work packages, which are the packages that we’re assigning to our teams to deliver as part of our project, planning packages and also release planning when using an Agile approach.
The techniques that you’ll see for Rolling Wave Planning include Decomposition, because we’re starting with a high level (for example a feature if we’re using Feature Driven Development) and we’re decomposing that into into work packages that our teams can work on and then deliver for that iteration.
When we get into iterative scheduling with a backlog of work, let’s say that our feature wants to be delivered for this particular two-week iteration, and we’re breaking that down, assigning that to our teams, saying “Can you work on this,” “Can you get it delivered for the end of our iteration,” and if yes for this particular one then that goes from the backlog into the sprint and a Kanban board, into that iteration for the team to work on.
So why do we do Rolling Wave Planning? During our early strategic planning, when information is less defined, work packages may be decomposed to the known level of detail. When we’re first doing a project charter for example, we don’t know all of the nitty-gritty detail. So we might have to start with a high-level feature or a high-level idea and work from there. As we get closer to working on those items, then we break it down as more is known about those upcoming events in the near term. Those work packages can be decomposed and that’s that key term from the PMBOK guide – they can be decomposed into the actual activities that we will perform to get that work done.
And that is Rolling Wave Planning.
– David McLachlan