This is part 5 of a 10-part series I am writing on Agile Project Management, by Jim Highsmith.

The first phase is the Envision phase. The importance of vision and its effect on software development cannot be underestimated. In successful new product development, although the exact details may be fuzzy or even unknown, the general concept is well communicated.

The three most helpful practices are the product vision box, project iteration plan, and project data sheet. The vision box is an actual product box of the software that is to be produced. The box should have graphics, some key selling features on the front, the platform requirements and a more detailed feature list on the back. The group or groups that come up with the vision box should be cross-functional teams including customers!

The project iteration plan is a basic plan outlining iteration end dates and iteration themes. The themes should be based on customer features, since communication of progress in terms the user can understand is paramount. The project data sheet is a more detailed list of required features. In UML this is analogous to the use case list, which lists all the important use cases of the product.

In the book, Highsmith covers more practices including getting the right people, creating an interface between the customers and developers, and tailoring agile practices and processes. This chapter was pretty long, and included a lot of material that Jim has been putting together over the past four years at the Cutter Consortium.