Writing the Right Agile User Stories! James Robertson! The Atlantic Systems Guild! Software Education!

Transcription

1 Writing the Right Agile User Stories! James Robertson! The Atlantic Systems Guild! Software Education!

2 To start, let s call them stories. There is no need to assume that someone is sitting in front of a computer.! 2

3 A quick introduction to stories! (You probably already know this)! The story is a placeholder for detailed requirements! 3

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5 The story is a placeholder for detailed requirements. But if it holds the wrong place..! 5

6 Role of the story!!! Discover the real need! Ellen Go-esdiener 6

7 The team must understand the story correctly when they start the conversation! 7

8 The real need is not about the product, but what the eventual owner needs or wants it to do! 8

9 Eventual owner! A customer buys your product to help her do something.! Your stories must help her do it.! An employee has to do some work for the eventual owner (the employee s organisation).! Your stories must help him do the work, and in a manner, that benefits the organisation.! 9

10 Eventual owner! A web site has to provide some service of value to the site s owner.! Your stories must enable visitors to use the site effectively, and make them want to use it.! 10

11 Rationale! Never leave it out of your story.! The rationale demonstrates the value to the eventual owner, and determines its priority and the effort to be expended.! 11

12 You might consider..! Chris Matts! 12

13 Discover! Discover what is valuable to the eventual owner! Ellen Go-esdiener 13

14 My position:! What I am calling a story, you might consider to be an epic.! Stories can be sliced to fit iterations.! But unless it starts as the right story, nothing in the delivery will save it.!! 14

15 Enough! Let s look at some stories! 15

16 The story! role is important to the eventual owner Functionality enables the value to be achieved rationale provides real, measurable value to the eventual owner 16

17 AS A BANK CUSTOMER I CAN CHECK MY ACCOUNT ONLINE SO THAT I CAN SEE MY BALANCE 24/7 This technological solution hides the real requirement Why does anyone want to know their current balance? 17

18 The right story! AS A BANK CUSTOMER I CAN SEE MY DISCRETIONARY BALANCE AND ALL ANTICIPATED PAYMENTS FOR THE MONTH SO THAT I CAN KNOW HOW MUCH IS AVAILABLE TO ME BEFORE NEXT PAYDAY DISCOVERY 18

19 This assumes that ALL restaurants serving raw ingredients will poison their customers AS THE CHICAGO PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT What about Sushi I WANT WARNINGS ABOUT restaurants? RESTAURANTS THAT SERVE RAW INGEDIENTS Only unsafe restaurants are SO THAT TOURISTS DON T GET problematical. SICK ON OUR DIME Not all of them. Why so concerned about tourists? Surely the city taxpayers are a higher priority. 19

20 The right story! AS THE CHICAGO PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT I NEED TO KNOW WHICH RESTAURANTS SERVING RAW FOOD HAVE FAILED INSPECTION CHECKS, OR HAVE NOT YET BEEN INSPECTED SO THAT WE CAN MINIMISE THE POSSIBILITY OF CONTAMINATED RAW FOOD 20

21 This story has ignored the eventual owner This suggests a deeper problem with AS A SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR I NEED TO BE ABLE TO RESET FORGOTTEN PASSWORDS WITH A MINIMUM OF HASSLE SO THAT I DON T WASTE MY TIME ON TRIVIAL THINGS security The system admin might think that security is trivial - the systems admin s employer does not. 21

22 Discovery! To all employees: Passwords must be between 6 and 8 characters, must be of mixed upper and lower case letters, contain at east one number and one special character. Passwords must be changed every 30 days. 22

23 The right story! AS AN EMPLOYEE I CAN HAVE INDIVIDUAL, SECURE ACCESS TO THE COMPANY SYSTEM SO THAT I DO NOT HAVE TO RELY ON EXTRAORDINARY FEATS OF MEMORY OR ENGAGE IN UNSAFE SECURITY PRACTICES 23

24 Vague description. Is this person important or not? Does this mean every user? AS A USER I NEED AN EXTERNAL DISK TO BACK UP MY LAPTOP S HARD DRIVE Technological solution to an unknown problem. SO THAT MY I CAN DATA RESTORE IS NOT LOST MY DATA IF MY IF HARD THE LAPTOP DRIVE CRASHES IS STOLEN 24

25 AS A CONSUMER I CAN SEE MY DAILY ENERGY USAGE SO THAT I CAN LOWER MY ENERGY COSTS AND USAGE The functionality does not provide the justification 25

26 The right story! AS A CONSUMER I CAN SEE ALTERNATIVE ENERGY PLANS FOR MY USAGE SO THAT I CAN SWITCH SUPPLIERS OR PLANS AND LOWER MY ENERGY COSTS 26

27 Who is the eventual owner? Does this functionality benefit the eventual owner? AS A WAREHOUSE MANAGER I CAN SEE A WEEKLY LIST OF UNFILLED ORDERS SO THAT I KNOW HOW MANY ARE UNFILLED Why does he or she want to know this? Surely: SO THAT I CAN FIGURE OUT WHY THEY ARE UNFILLED 27

28 The right story! AS A WAREHOUSE MANAGER I CAN BE ALERTED WHEN MULTIPLE ORDERS START TO BE UNFILELD DUE TO THE SAME CAUSE. SO THAT I CAN LEARN ABOUT A POTENTIAL PROBLEM, AND TAKE EARLY ACTION. 28

29 When you discover the real need, you can write the right stories! 29

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31 Step back! 31

32 The work, not the product! 32

33 Essence! Seeing past the implementation and the technology to discover the underlying concepts and policies. In other words, the real problem.! These are technological words:! Screen, list, report, password, print, database, hand- held tablet, telephone, person, etc. Ask what the technology is doing.! The essence is what, not how.!! 33

34 Essential stories! AS A STUDENT I WANT TO CHECK MY GRADES ONLINE SO THAT I DON T HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL THE MORNING AS A TEAM MEMBER I WANT TO VIEW THE CURRENT BURNDOWN CHART ON THE STATUS PAGE, AND CAN CLICK IT FOR A LARGER VIEW No justification given AS A PRODUCT OWNER I WANT TO DRAG AND DROP ALL THE PRODUCT BACKLOG ITEMS SO THAT I CAN EASILY ADJUST PRIORITIES AS A STUDENT I CAN LEARN MY GRADES IMMEDIATELY THEY ARE AVAILABLE SO THAT I DON T SUFFER LONGER THAN NECCESSARY Who knows what the real problem is, and who knows if this will solve it? AS A PRODUCT OWNER I CAN BE MADE AWARE OF THE HIGHEST PRIORITY NEEDS SO THAT I CAN ALIGN BACKLOG ITEMS WITH PRIORITIES 34

35 It works, but I hate it! 35

36 Non-functional requirements! Business! ROI! Marketability! Customers / users! Convenience! Speed! Usability! Security! Ellen Go-esdiener Technology! Efficiency! Operability! Environment! 36

37 Mitzi posts new music to the site! 10. Look and Feel! 10a. Appearance! 10b. Style! 11. Usability and Humanity! 11a. Ease of Use! 11b. Personalization and Internationalization! 11c. Learning! 11d. Understandability and Politeness! 11e. Accessibility! 12. Performance! 12a. Speed and Latency! 12b. Safety-Critical! 12c. Precision or Accuracy! 12d. Reliability and Availability! 12e. Robustness or Fault-Tolerance! 12f. Capacity! 12g. Scalability or Extensibility!! Template from

38 13. Operational and Environmental! 13a. Expected Physical Environment! 13b. Requirements for Interfacing with Adjacent Systems! 13c. Productization! 14. Maintainability and Support! 14a. Maintenance! 14b. Supportability! 14c. Adaptability! 15. Security! 15a. Access! 15b. Integrity! 15c. Privacy! 15d. Audit! 16. Cultural and Political! 17. Compliance! Template from Hayley buys music!

39 Non-functional requirements! AS AN OFFICE MANAGER I CAN HAVE A MAIL PROCESSING SYSTEM THAT IS EASY TO LEARN SO THAT CASUAL OFFICE STAFF CAN LEARN TO USE IT IN LESS THAN TWO HOURS AS THE HEAD OF MUSIC Maintainability requirement Ease of use and Learning requirement I CAN EASILY MAKE CHANGES TO OUR WEB SITE SO THAT WE ALWAYS HAVE THE LATEST FEATURES AND OPTIONS FOR OUR CUSTOMERS 39

40 Innovation is important. Spend less time developing your solution, and more time thinking about how it could be better.! 40

41 The second right answer.. is almost always better than your first! 41

42 The second right answer! These stories have been proposed for an online jobfinding site! 42

43 Systems dynamics! 43

44 AS A JOB SEEKER I CAN SUBMIT A COMPLETE APPLICATION AND PERSONAL PROFILE SO THAT THE BEST POSSIBLE MATCHES CAN BE MADE FOR ME AS AN EMPLOYER I CAN SUBMIT A COMPLETE JOB DESCRITION SO THAT THE BEST POSSIBLE CANDIDATES WILL BE SELECTED AS AN EMPLOYER I CAN LIMIT THE NUMBER OF APPLICANTS INVITED FOR INTERVIEW SO THAT I SPEND INTERVIEW TIME WITH ONLY THE MOST LIKELY CANDIDATES 44

45 AS A JOB SEEKER I CAN BE NOTIFIED WHEN A SUITABLE JOB HAS BEEN FOUND FOR ME SO THAT I DO NOT HAVE TO MONITOR THE SITE AND CAN BE LOOKING FOR WORK IN OTHER PLACES AS A JOB SEEKER I CAN EXCLUDE CERTAIN CATEGORIES OF WORK OR ORGANISATION SO THAT I WILL NOT BE MATCHED TO JOBS THAT I WON T ACCEPT AS AN EMPLOYER I CAN BE NOTIFIED OF ANY OUTLIER CANDIDATES SO THAT I CAN SEE UNCONVENTIONAL BUT PROMISING CANDIDATES 45

46 Check your story! Important role, not user? Not I want Not a tech solution Improves the work Not a lazy story Can you write an acceptance criterion for the story? Demonstrates real and worthwhile business value 46

47 How to write the right stories! 1. Think about the work, not the solution. The solution is only possible once you have understood the work.! 2. Use business events to partition your work.! 3. Don t write the story until you understand the real need.! 4. The functionality must contribute to the project goals.! 5. Always include so that and make sure the justification provides real business value.! 6. Don t rush into your stories. Instead, think about how you can innovate and make the product better.! 7. Find the second right answer. Then write your story.! 8. Think about the non-functional needs usability, convenience, security, cultural and so on.! 9. Your story is the foundation. It must be right for the solution to be right.! 47

48 It s simple: Write the right stories and get the right products.! 48

49 Thank you! James Robertson! The Atlantic Systems Guild! for requirements and other development resources! for James seminars! 49

50 Questions?! 50