Iteration Planning

Today I went through my first iteration planning meeting with a client at 8th Light. My previous experience with iteration planning has only been with internal project managers presenting stories as opposed to customers presenting stories. This offered a different dynamic than my previous experience in that I was being presented stories directly from the customer as opposed to the PM who represents the customer. I really liked that there was virtually no distance between the us and the customers, which allowed us to clear confusing points very quickly. The customers were very easy to work with and were very receptive to our guidance and feedback. We were able to estimate stories and the clients prioritized the stories so that we will be able to produce working software by the end of the iteration. One could say that the planning meet went "by the books" as I have been learning in the Project Management Course. At the end of the meeting it was cool to see satisfaction and agreement between both parties. This project will be the first client work that I do for 8th Light. I'm really excited to start providing value to the business!