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Technical Planning Meetings

Definition

  • A technical planning meeting (TPM) is an informal discussion aimed at streamlining our development processes and agreeing on a technical solution and/ or next steps
  • They can be as short or as long as necessary
  • They should be requested by engineers

When is one appropriate?

  • When starting a new project
  • When adding new features or functionality
  • When the technical implementation is not clear for the next iteration of a feature
  • When undertaking work that requires multiple teams to collaborate on a technical solution

Expected Outcomes

  • High level documentation of the business problem, the technical solution and/ or next steps and the business impact (at a high level, it should be established how complex the task is in order that we can analyse the business impact)
  • Engineers should have a clear understanding of what is expected moving forward
  • What the next steps are, this could be a list of actionable tasks
  • A definition of done/ acceptance criteria
  • Stakeholders should be clear what Tech Debt there is with any MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

Probable Attendees

  • Engineer(s) with a technical challenge
  • Engineer(s) to support the discussion and agree a technical solution/ next steps
  • Data engineers (if data needs to be considered)
  • Designers or a representative from the UXUI guild (if visual changes may be required)
  • Business owners (if the business requirements are sufficiently complex and to assess the business impact)
  • Testers (if there is a large testing requirement. If so, ask in #testers)

The Process

Part 1 - Before the TPM

  • Make a copy of the TPM template (Ask a tech lead for details). Part 1 is completed and to increase visibility that the TPM is taking place, notification of the TPM is posted with a link to the document in the Slack Channel #tpm
  • Place the TPM in the shared drive.

Part 2 - During the TPM

  • The engineer explains the business problem they're trying to solve and open it up for discussion
  • We exchange thoughts and ideas, fill in any blanks and compromise where necessary to reach a good solution - using the TPM template agenda as a meeting guide
  • We break the work down into small chunks
  • If the chunks of work are not small enough to begin work, arrange for future TPMs to dig deeper into the larger problems

Part 3 - After the TPM

  • Following the TPM, the engineer discusses the outcome with the key stakeholders to agree next steps and confirm business impact
  • Delivery Managers can then prioritise the work as appropriate
  • Once the TPM template has been completed in full, circulate a link with the TL;DR section to relevant groups (e.g. webit email group)