Precision Alignment Approach for Calculating Agile Project Budget
To measure an agile project’s budget and schedule, multiple approaches are readily available for agile teams working with methodologies like Scrum and Extreme Programming. They are mostly size-based estimation techniques including “Planning Poker” and “Affinity Grouping,” which are applicable only to making technical decisions such as “What features can we finish in next iteration?” or “How long will it take to finish the following features?”
When it comes to strategic decisions, such as “Do we have enough fund for the project (i.e. whether to even start it)?” or “What is the range of budget that is required to finish the project?” a time and money-based budgeting technique such as “Precision-Alignment Approach” is the right answer.
Precision-Alignment Approach is quite straightforward, easy to grasp, and appropriate for both IT and business agile projects. To better illustrate the principles of the approach, we will use a business agile project as an example–building a website for an online bookstore:
The desired and prioritized features of the website are listed below (which should be known by the bookstore owner):
- Search Books Function
- Checkout Function
- Manage Inventory
