Agile Dev West 2016 - Agile Requirements
Wednesday, June 8
Blending Product Discovery and Product Delivery
More and more organizations are realizing that while they are getting more done, they are not necessarily getting more value. More code does not mean more product and more product does not mean more market share. According to David Hussman, we need to shift our focus toward a balanced investment in discovery and delivery without going back to gathering big requirements up front. To accomplish this, we need to embrace new discovery metaphors and practices. David draws on his years of experience working with product managers, heads of product, and product owners as he introduces ideas like...
From Unclear and Unrealistic Requirements to Achievable User Stories
"What do you want the system to do?" can be a loaded question for agile teams. Ideally, the product owner gives you a product backlog with fully groomed user stories prioritized by business value, ready for team discussion and estimation. Instead, you may have the “big picture” product owner who can describe high level requirements but struggles to provide clear direction on specific system behavior, or the “aspiring developer” product owner who is more than happy to give you exact system implementation in intricate technical detail. You may have the “kid in a candy shop” product owner who...
Your User Stories Are Too Big: Yes, They Are!
When a user story is too big, it is harder to understand, estimate, and implement successfully. Some teams break the “business story” into “technical stories” but this generally doesn’t help because most or all of the technical stories need to be completed before there is anything meaningful for the stakeholders. There is a better way. Chris Sims teaches four simple yet powerful techniques for breaking big stories into smaller stories that are meaningful to stakeholders and deliver incremental business value. For each of the four techniques, Chris models the technique and then gives...