Right-Sizing User Stories
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The document discusses writing better user stories for agile software development. It outlines the key parts of a user story, including functionality, user role, and conversation. It also discusses attributes that make for a good story, such as being independent, negotiable, valuable, estimable, and sized appropriately. The document provides tips for ensuring a story is sized appropriately, such as breaking large stories into smaller functional lines or user roles. It notes that every team is different in how they prefer to break down and work on stories, and that a story should not be considered too small until development begins.
Right-Sizing User Stories
- 2. © 2011 VersionOne 2 • Steve Ropa – Steven.ropa@versionone.com – Agile Coach – Certified Scrum Master – Certified Scrum Product Owner – 19 years software development • 11 years programming • 8 years director of development – 10 years Agile experience • XP • Scrum – http://blog.versionone.com/blog/agile- musings
- 3. © 2011 VersionOne 3 What is a User Story? Functionality Valuable User Role
- 4. © 2011 VersionOne 4 Three Parts of a User Story Conversation Confirmation Card
- 5. © 2011 VersionOne 5 INVEST - Attributes of a good Story Independent Negotiable Valuable Estimable Sized Appropriately Testable
- 6. © 2011 VersionOne 6 So What is “Sized Appropriately?
- 7. © 2011 VersionOne 7 Sometimes its easy to tell….
- 8. © 2011 VersionOne 8 Other times, its all relative
- 9. © 2011 VersionOne 9 • A single team can develop this story in a single iteration • If we are going to do more than one story in an iteration, we might want to shrink that a bit… A story should be small enough that….
- 10. © 2011 VersionOne 10 What can we do to break a big story into smaller ones?
- 11. © 2011 VersionOne 11 • Functional lines – When I log in, if I use the right user name and password, I can get to the main page where I can start shopping for great buys from Hershey’s, Mars, and Necco. • I can login with the right user name and password • I can’t login with the wrong user name and password • I can shop for candy from… – Hershey – Mars – Necco We can break it along…
- 12. © 2011 VersionOne 12 • When I log in I can shop for candy at any store I like. If I’m a premium user, I can also get a list of where my favorite candy is available cheap, by candy type. If I’m a regular user, I can only see lists of stores that are selling candy online… User Roles…
- 13. © 2011 VersionOne 13 • As any user, I can login to the system with my user name and password. Login
- 14. © 2011 VersionOne 14 • As a regular user, I can see lists of stores that are selling candy on line, and navigate to that store for my shopping. Regular User
- 15. © 2011 VersionOne 15 • As a premium user, I can see a list of my favorite kinds of candy, with links that will take me to where I can get the best price. Premium User
- 16. © 2011 VersionOne 16 Every team is different Some teams want to work one good sized story together Others want a bunch of small stories that can be distributed among the team
- 17. © 2011 VersionOne 17 Is there such a thing as a story that is too small?
- 18. © 2011 VersionOne 18 • Until we start developing it – Break out the smaller stories now – Leave enough substance in the initial story to have something to show for your work. Sometimes, the story looks ok….
- 19. © 2011 VersionOne 19 • What are some examples of a story that “feels” too big? • How might we break it down together? Audience Participation
- 20. © 2011 VersionOne 20 The goal for a story is “Done”
- 21. © 2011 VersionOne 21 Not just “Dev Complete”…
- 22. © 2011 VersionOne 22 Thank you, and any questions?
Editor's Notes
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- #4: What is a User Story?A User Story describes functionality that will be valuable to a User Role of a system or softwareUser Stories are composed of 3 aspectsCardConversationConfirmation
- #7: There are many different sizes of users story. No one size fits all, and what might appear very large to some teams might appear to be just fine to others.
- #8: Sometimes, a story is so large that we really don’t need a lot of extra analysis to know that they are just too large for words. In most shops, these stories are called epics.
- #9: Relative scale is really the crux of story sizing.
- #18: Really, as long as a story is satisfying those INVEST principals, there really isn’t a size limit on the small side. It can be taken to the extreme, but in the end it is about providing some level of business value to the customer.
- #21: We really want our stories to be sized so that we don’t carry them over very often. If we can keep in mind that our goal is to provide a piece of functionality that can actually add value, no matter how small that value is, we will go a long way into finding the right sized stories for us.
- #22: Too often I will hear “well we finished the story, but the testing had to wait until the next iteration”.