Sonya has a decade of experience in software development, product management and process optimization. She is the founder and CEO at Nave, a Kanban analytics suite that helps agile practitioners build predictable delivery workflows. The primary focus of Nave is to enable you to make reliable data-driven forecasts and deliver on your commitments without overburdening your teams.

How to Plan Your Next Release Without Counting Hours (or Story Points)

In this session, we’ll reveal the model that doesn’t rely on guesswork, intuition or gut feeling. With this strategy, you’ll only need a couple of minutes to offer a reliable delivery commitment.

If you’re struggling to determine the correct amount of work in your release plan and you want to make sure that it is a manageable amount, which won’t throw your team into a full-fledged burnout... If you’re tired of seeing your team spend countless hours estimating the work and arguing about story points and your planning sessions take way too long... If your aim is to use that time to actually do the work instead... If your goal is to improve your predictability so you can make accurate data-driven decisions and actually deliver on your commitments while building a reputation of credibility and reliability, this session will help you tremendously!

• The flaw of story point (or hours) estimation and the first step towards making an objective decision about how much work your team can handle during your next release.
• The reliable data-driven approach to release planning which will enable you to leave tracking time and effort in the past. With this strategy, you can make reliable delivery predictions in just a couple of minutes.
• The strategies to stay on track with your commitments which will not only help you keep your finger on the pulse of the work and adjust your course accordingly but will also spark team motivation and engagement.