agile and user story workshop - peter saddington

Agile with SCRUM Overviewand User Stories

Peter Saddington, CSM CSPEnterprise Agile CoachExecutive EditorAgileScout.com@agilescout

White Barrel LLC. © 2011 Peter Saddington

Peter Saddington, CSP CSMIndependent Enterprise Agile CoachRally Software Agile CoachExecutive Editor AgileScout.comAuthor – Scrum Pocket [email protected]+1.404.669.6662www.agilescout.comwww.scrumpocketguide.comTwitter: @agilescout

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Before we begin… A Standup!Let’s take a moment to introduce ourselves.

•What’s your name & project you’re working on?•What is your level of experience with Agile?•What do you hope to learn in this workshop?

Write questions on Sticky notes as they occur to you and affix them to our Learning Backlog.


Free Swag = #win!


www.scrumpocketguide.com

Agile Manifesto• Individuals and interactions over processes and

tools• Working software over comprehensive

documentation• Customer collaboration over contract

negotiation• Responding to change over following a plan


www.agilemanifesto.org

Distilled Principles of Agile Manifesto• Priority is to satisfy the customer• Deliver working software frequently• Business and development work together• Working software is primary measure of success• The team regularly reflects on work• Build projects around motivated people


Process Frameworks• Waterfall


Process Frameworks• Iterative


Process Frameworks• Agile


Agile vs Scrum vs Other Frameworks• Agile is a mindset, there are several ways to

implement Agile:– XP – Extreme Programming– DSDM – Dynamic Systems Development Method– Scrum – lightweight team centric processes– Lean – Manufacturing processes applied to software– FDD – Feature centric processes


Scrum• Scrum is not an acronym, but a strategy in the

game of rugby for getting an out-of-play ball back into play.


Exercise – Batch vs Flow Four volunteers, please!

Round 1•Each person flips all pennies•When done with entire batch, pass to next person

Round 2•Each person flip one penny and pass to next person•Keep flipping and passing until done

Round 3•Each table creates their own rules to maximize penny flow/throughput in least amount of time


Scrum Rules• Scrum is a set of rules,

procedures, and practices• Improve the development

environment• Reduce organizational

overheads• Ensure iterative deliverables

match user requirements


Scrum Approach• Work together as a whole

team• Focus on business priorities• Time box short sprints and

releases• Commit and deliver value

incrementally


The Chicken and the Pig – A Story:

• Bacon and Egg Restaurant• Chickens involved…• Pigs are committed!


How It All Starts• A Scrum project starts with a

vision of the system or product to be developed

• The vision might be vague at first…

• Perhaps stated in market terms rather than system terms…

• But it will become clearer as the project moves forward


Scrum Roles• Product Owner

– The single customer voice who establishes the vision, prioritizes the work and defines success criteria

• ScrumMaster– The situational leader who empowers the team,

facilitates the process, and removes impediments

• Cross-functional team– The people who deliver the customer value


Scrum Meetings• Daily Scrum• Sprint Planning Meeting• Sprint Review Meeting*• Demo• Sprint Retrospective


Scrum Artifacts• User Stories• Product Backlog

– List of functional and non-functional requirements

• Sprint Backlog– Prioritized list of stories for a given sprint

• Sprint Burndown Chart– A chart showing completion of stories over time

• Definition of done


The Bottom Line• Scrum is:

– Doing the simplest thing possible

– Getting a team what it needs and getting out of their way

– Removing any obstacle that is preventing a team from being productive and efficient


Final Thoughts• The core of Agile is the team• Focus on the priorities first (most valuable)• Communication• Document throughout the process instead of all

up front• Review, review, review• Define the “done.”


User Stories – Better PracticesUser Stories – Better Practices

A Quick Guide to Story Creation in Scrum

Peter Saddington CSM, CSPAgile Scrum Coach

A Worldview

White Barrel LLC © 2010 Peter Saddington

Roadmap


Why Not Requirements Documents?Complete specifications:

•Assume everything is knowable in advance•Are time-consuming to write and tedious to read•Treat learning as a “Change of Scope”•Don’t lend themselves to iterative, incremental delivery process


User Stories are a ConversationUser stories are:

•User or customer need•Product description•Used for planning•A conversation piece


User Stories Facilitate Conversation• User* – How do I describe what I want?• Stakeholder – What do I need in my product to

be successful?• PM – How do I track and schedule this work?• BA – What are the details of this feature?• UX – How do I understand the users needs?• Developer – What are the details of the tasks I

need to work on today?• QA – How do I validate this completed work?


Adapted from Jeff Patton www.AgileProductDesign.com

• Easy to understand – Makes sense to the reader• A (software/system) requirement • One or two sentences with value to the customer• Written by the Customer – PO or BA• Refined by Development – Tasks and Technical• Negotiable – Conversation token• Small and estimable – Small enough to estimate• Testable – Should have acceptance criteria• Becomes more detailed over time – Iteration Planning


A User Story Is


User Story ProcessStep #1 Step #2 Step #3

Define the user personas!

•What different types of customers/consumers interact with the system?•What are their roles?


Step #1 - Where do we start?

• User Roles– Various types of user personas

• Role Modeling– Brain storming– Organizing – Consolidating– Refining

• Extreme Characters?


User Role Modeling

Scenario: You need to create a simple login and preferences mechanism for your corporate Twitter account

•Who are your users of this system?•What are their roles?


Exercise - Defining the Personas


Persona Definition Documentation?

Roadmap


Story Creation - Guidelines• Stakeholders write user stories• Remember non-functional requirements• Indicate the estimated size• Indicate the priority• Include a unique identifier (if applicable)• Go into a product backlog• The product backlog is prioritized by value –

Highest to lowest


Non-Functional Requirements• Non-functional requirements should often

be considered “constraints” on a system• Can include:

– Performance– Quality– Accuracy– Portability– Reusability– Maintainability– Interoperability– Capacity


Adapted from Mike Cohn www.mountaingoatsoftware.com

INVEST ModelINVEST Model• Independent – One user story should be independent of another (as much as

possible). Dependencies between stories make planning, prioritization, and estimation much more difficult.

• Negotiable – Details of the story can be worked out during an Iteration planning meeting. A story with too much detail can limit conversations (at times).

• Valuable – Value to the customer.

• Estimable – There needs to be enough detail for the developers to estimate a user story to allow prioritization and planning of the story.

• Small – A good story should be small in effort, typically no more than 2-3 person weeks of effort (smaller is better)!

• Testable – User stories should be testable with certain acceptance criteria. Saying something like “software should be easy to use” is not helpful.


Bill Wake’s INVEST Model

Ron Jeffries 3 C’s• Card – Stories written on note cards with

annotations as needed (estimates, notes, etc)

• Conversation – Details behind story come out through conversations with the Product Owner

• Confirmation – Acceptance tests confirm the story was coded correctly


Four Main Components of a Story• (Given (AS A)) – “As a business owner…” / “Given a new list…”

• (When (I WANT)) – “I’d like the ability to…” / “We need a function to…” / “When a customer clicks on…” / “When a dropdown opens…”

• (Then (SO THAT)) – “So that I can…” / “So that the customer can…” / “Then the customer should see…” / “Then the dropdown list should…”

• (Acceptance Criteria) – Verifiable and testable criteria that can be tested based on THEN clause.

• Or Simply: “As a <user type>, I want to <function> so that I can <business value>


1. Given(Given (AS A)) – “As a business owner…” / “Given a new list…”

-We want users to be tangible with needs

-Build out “Personas” or “User Roles” – Standard user definitions (Sacred – Added with purpose)

-Avoid generic terms


2. When(When (I WANT)) – “I’d like the ability to…” / “We need a function to…” / “When a customer clicks on…” / “When a dropdown opens…”

-This is the meat and potatoes of the story

-This is where you describe the functions

-


3. Then(Then (SO THAT)) – “So that I can…” / “So that the customer can…” / “Then the customer should see…” / “Then the dropdown list should…”

-This is to show the intrinsic value of the story

-The value is to the persona, user, or author


4. Acceptance Criteria(Acceptance Criteria) – Verifiable and testable criteria that can be tested based on THEN clause.

-These are essentially tests – Conditions of satisfaction-Example: As a user, I can cancel a reservation.

- Verify that a premium member can cancel- Verify that a email confirmation is sent- Verify that the hotel is notified of any cancelation

-These acceptance criteria can become developer tasks


4a. Acceptance Stories(Acceptance Stories) – Verifiable and testable criteria written in acceptance test form.

-Scenario 1: TITLE- GIVEN [context]- And [some more context]- When [event]- Then [outcome]- And [another outcome]


4b. Acceptance Confirmation(Acceptance Confirmation) – Verifiable and testable criteria written in “Success” and “Failure” terms

-Success – valid user logged in- “Remember my user name” selected – store cookie / automatic login next

time- “Remember my user name” not selected – force login next time

-Failure – display message:- “Email address in wrong format”- “Incorrect password, please try again”- “Service unavailable, please try again”- Etc.


Exercise – 99 BalloonsLet’s form some teams!

Round 1•Recreate my balloon with: 2 round eyes, a triangle nose, and a semi-circle mouth •2 minutes! Go!

Round 2•How can you improve for the next iteration?

Round 3•How did you change how you worked this time around?


• User Interviews– Select right interviewees– Ask open-ended, context-free questions

• Questionnaires– Larger population of users– When you need specific answers to questions

• Observation– Best for in-house developments

• Story writing workshopsWhite Barrel LLC © 2010 Peter Saddington

Step #2 – Gathering User Stories


•We’ve determined our users…•Let’s refine the set of user stories


Exercise – Refine the User Stories

Roadmap


Product Backlog to Release Backlog• A prioritized list of

features for the given product

• Stories are implemented based on their priority

• The TOP priority Features are put into iterations first

• Changes to the iterations are OK

• After stories are built they go into a release backlog


Prioritization Factors to Consider• Financial value of

features• Costs of

implementation• Amount of risk

removed / added• Training on new

features• PO should be

enabled


MoSCoW Method

• M – MUST have (Critical for success)• S – SHOULD have if possible (If not time

critical)• C – COULD have if it does not affect

anything else (Include if little development cost)

• W – WON’T have this time, but WOULD like in future


MoSCoW method - Dai Clegg of Oracle UK for DSDM

M & S of MoSCoW

• M – MUST have (Critical for success)– Essential - key stakeholders needs will not be

satisfied if this requirement is not delivered and the timebox will be considered to have failed

• S – SHOULD have if possible (If not time critical)– Important - but if not delivered within the current

timebox, there is an acceptable workaround until it is delivered during the next sprint


C & W of MoSCoW

• C – COULD have if it does not affect anything else (Include if little development cost)– “Nice to have” – this is estimated to be possible to

complete in the timebox but will be de-scoped if an underestimation has occured

• W – WON’T have this time, but WOULD like in future– Will not be delivered within the timebox


Kano’s Model of Quality

Objective and Subjective Quality

•Must-haves – Same as “M” in MoSCoW•One-dimensional – “The more of this I get, the better.”•Delighters – Great to haves


Noriaki Kano – Theory of Product Development

Kano’s Model - Example

• In Agile – Objective quality is non-negotiable• Subjective quality – Perception of quality

– To accurately assess subjective quality, the Product Owner MUST know the customers (primary users)

– One user’s “delighter” may leave others apathetic– One user’s “must have” is useless to others


Jeff Paton – www.Agileproductdesign.com

Prioritization Sliders


• Manage the backlog by:– Sorting stories by user persona– Sorting stories by highest priority (value)– Review stories for completeness– Asking the 4 “WHYs” for business value

• Why do you want…?– [As a] Customer Service Representative– [I want] to have a button – [So that] I can go to the next screen…


Step #3 – A.C. and Backlog Priority


•We’ve determined our users…•We’ve refined the set of user stories•Let’s put A.C. and priority


Exercise – Stories to Backlog

Roadmap


Themes to Tasks


Tasks Warm Up Exercise

What are all the things you did to get ready to be at work today?

1.Starting from the moment you woke up to arriving here.

2.Take a sheet of paper and write them down!


Tasks vs Tools Exercise

1. Share with the group some example lists

2. What are common themes and tasks?

3. What was different?


Goals, Tasks, Tools


User Stories are Tasks or Tools


Stories Satisfy User NEEDS First!


1. Start with specific personas

2. Write closed stories first

3. Write stories collaboratively


Simple Guidelines for Good Stories

Exercise – Creating at a Story

1. Take a current feature your team is aware of

2. Each team member writes the story

3. Share

4. Discuss – Implications / Constraints / Missed AC

5. Review


Roadmap


Epic User Stories

Causes for Story Size• Stories cover too much information• Story writers do not have the needed domain

knowledge• Stories have uncertainty due to dependence on

new technology• Story writers cannot articulate exactly what

they want


Breaking Up Epics

Split – Slice stories up into different scenariosSpike – Too many unknowns? Time-box a spike

and take a deep dive into the technology or domain

Stub – Part of a story known and part unknown. Fake it with a stub! Work on the known part up till the unknown.

Time box – The PO knows they need something, but until they get it, not sure if it’s right


Splitting for Value - Three Rules

When breaking down epics, remember:

1. Split stories for value – No value? Hard to prioritize

2. Split a story that gets you more equally sized small stories

3. Split an epic that lets you deprioritize or throw away a story


Exercise – Breaking Up Epics

Let’s take an example from our existing backlog


Suggestions for Splitting Up Epics

• Handle empty scenarios and core functions first• Happy path, then alternate flows / exceptions• Single option, then add additional options• Simple (or no) UI, then add bells / whistles• Transient case (no memory between sessions) before

persistence• Static elements, then dynamic based on content• User specified, then more automation


Roadmap


Notes on Bug or Issue Tracking

1. Steps to Reproduce / Recreate the Bug

2. Actual Results

3. Expected Results

4. Any other details as appropriate


Exercise – Baseline Story Estimation

1. Different Stories in different sizes (1,2,3,5,8…)

2. What was the estimated size?

3. What were the complexities of that story?

4. Does this story need a re-write? What was missed?

5. Complete for sizes


Questions?


agile and user story workshop - peter saddington

Documents

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